We Could Be Heroes
by PineappleGrenade
Summary: Gotham, the city that never sleeps because it is afraid of nightmares. One man has taken it upon himself to protect Gotham from her nightmares, but he can't even save himself from his own; the nightmare that wears the face of a clown.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Here it is, the sequel to my fic 'From The Inside'. Its major events are explained in this fic, so you don't have to have read it to understand this one._

A wild scatty rhythm of saxophones and trumpets filled the air of the small room with a riot of sound, blending with the erratic _tap-tap _of an underlying drumbeat. Caterwauling cacophony up and down the scales, leaping between key changes with the ease of giants traversing mountain ranges. Staccato bursts of trumpet notes that assaulted the ears and then continued to rock them, pounding through the canals and arteries that made up the brain until they were trembling under the attack, left to the mercy of the music's might. All the rules were made to be broken, to be crushed under each and every golden note. Boundaries were chewed up and redefined in the majesty of that noise. All this and more was jazz and the Joker loved it.

He sat sprawled on the broken springs of a beaten, crooked armchair in his beaten, crooked apartment room with his head thrown back and his eyes closed. He breathed in the music, bathed in it and it didn't matter that it came crackling through a tinny set of cheap speakers because in his head it reverberated like the acoustics in the finest music hall. The lack of form and unpredictable measure suited him perfectly; it made sense to his way of thinking.

The song drew, after what felt like a lifetime but had only really been three minutes, to a close and the smoke-roughened voice of the radio deejay announced that there would be some more "sexy" jazz tunes to come after the travel update. Joker slowly opened his eyes and was mildly surprised to find himself still in his flat, an eyrie perched high above the streets of Gotham. Turning his head, he could look out of the grimy window and see the jagged skyline of the city silhouetted against the bloody red of a setting sun.

A smooth female voice on the radio informed him that there had been a crash on 43rd Street and it was recommended that drivers find an alternative route home because traffic in that area had slowed to a crawl. Joker thought about getting out of Gotham. There'd been a suicide attempt on the underground, so the trains would be running late, but there were plenty of other cities with suicides on the tracks. A little vacation could be just what the doctor ordered.

Joker was feeling run down, he was tired, bored. He'd tried to show Gotham the fun side of things, but apparently no one had got the joke because he'd ended up in Arkham Asylum. Although not the worst thing the clown prince had ever lived through, it was still not an experience that he was willing to repeat in a hurry. Of course, a whole different spin had been put on the matter when it turned out that the head of Arkham, Doctor Hugo Strange, had been using his inmate in a thought experiment that merged Joker's mind with the fugitive Batman's. But all that was over and done with now. Gotham had grown stale, uninspiring; it was time to move onto fresher climes.

Travel update finished, a new song had begun to play on the radio but now Joker barely heard it. His mind had moved on to where he would take his little recuperative vacation. A little trip would work wonders on his tired mind and have him cracking new jokes a mile a minute in no time. There was just the problem of where to go. He'd heard Hollywood was nice at this time of year; or maybe Washington D.C. with its deliciously corruptible politicians, just waiting for someone to come along and introduce a little anarchy into their grey little lives. Yes, he would go to D.C. and put a smile –

'_Don't even think about it, Joker.'_

Hearing that familiar voice sound in his head, disrupting the flow of his thoughts, the clown prince froze. A frown pulling at his forehead, he tilted his head on one side and banged on his ear with the heel of his palm, like a swimmer clearing his head of water. "Bats?" he enquired out loud, glancing around his poky little room.

'_You really need to clean out your head, it's disgusting in here.'_

Joker stood up and drew his knife from its place of concealment inside his long purple coat so fast that he shredded the lining. With a feral grin stretching his lips, he whirled to face the rapidly darkening room behind him. The space was barren, just a few threadbare pieces of furniture, not many places to hide but someone was in here, because someone was talking to him.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are…" Joker crooned as he stepped around the armchair he'd been sitting on, advancing upon the room. He twirled the knife deftly in his hand, prowling very slowly around the perimeters of the walls, checking behind tables and cabinets. "Uncle Joker is in no mood for playing 'Find the Bat'."

Suddenly, a strangled bark like that of a rabid dog erupted from his throat and he lunged for the sullied curtains at his window. One quick slash of his fist and a gaping wound appeared in the greasy fabric. Nothing behind that one, so he attacked the next, tearing it from the curtain pole above the window.

Shreds of curtain draping across his arms, he panted "How now? A bat? Dead for a ducat, dead!" with a fearsome grin on his face.

'_Hamlet, Act three, Scene four,' _the voice in Joker's head commented dryly.

"Get out, get out!" the criminal roared, punishing his temples with both fists. "You can't be in my head; the psychic link between us was broken when Doc Strange went into a coma." In one wild plunge he was across the room and flinging open his apartment door.

"Coco? Coco?!" He roared down the corridor, hanging from the doorframe. When there was no answer, he kicked viciously at the safety banister surrounding the top of the stairs. The wood splintered noisily under his assault, half of it breaking off and tumbling down the treacle-thick darkness of the stairwell. Joker thought abruptly of someone tripping over a piece of safety rail and breaking their neck and that made him laugh, although the sound came out as more of a barking shout than an indication of good humour.

'_I'd get out if I could Joker, believe me. You think I want to be in here?'_

"Shut up."

Joker's recently employed henchman, Coco, appeared like a rat out of a hole from a door further down the corridor. Dressed in sagging boxers and a grubby muscle shirt, he yawned and rubbed at piggy eyes with a ham fist.

"D'you call me, Mister Joker?" he asked through a mouthful of sleep, scratching at the substantial portion of gut that hung over the waistband of his undershorts.

With all the speed and ferocity of a dervish, Joker was upon his luckless employee, an arm wrapped securely around the man's shoulders to hold a knife to his throat as he was roughly escorted into the clown prince's apartment. Once inside, Joker glanced around and nervously licked his scars, before pressing his painted forehead to the side of the aptly-named Coco's head.

A thug of the first degree, it didn't take much to scare the henchman, but he froze completely at the insane criminal's touch. His heart pounded in his mouth like he had never known it to before. He'd heard things about this Joker, this madman, and all of a sudden he wished he'd stayed in school and gotten a quiet desk job in a nice company, like Wayne Enterprises for instance.

'_Don't hurt him, I'm watching you.'_

Joker flinched a little. "Do you, ah, do you _hear_ anything?" he asked the thug he had ahold of. Gone was the towering fury in his voice, now it oozed with a caressing sweetness that was somehow even more threatening. Coco could hear a slight churning sound by his ear as Joker ran a tongue across his lips, which made his stomach roll over. He nearly lost all control of the vital organ when he felt the blade of the knife at his throat being inserted tenderly, absentmindedly, into the corner of his mouth.

It took him only a second to reply, even though his immediate future hung in the balance of his words. "Just… just them tunes on your radio, Mister Joker."

As if by magic, a gun appeared in Joker's free hand. A couple of ear-shattering gun shots rang out, silencing the radio forever. "What about now?"

'_He won't be able to hear me; I'm in your head. We need to work out why this has happened.'_

"N-nothing, Mister J, I can't hear nothing," Coco stammered, on the verge of sobbing. It was so difficult to talk with a blade cutting into his cheek, threatening at any moment to open up his tongue, or even his entire mouth.

'_Something must be going on with Strange, that would explain it.''_

Uttering a barking snarl, Joker threw his henchman from him in frustration. Luckily the man escaped no worse injury than a small cut on his upper lip. He cowered on the floor where he had fallen, watching fearfully as the boss set about beating his own head, thrashing from side to side with a gun and knife held in either hand.

Suddenly, Joker stopped and stood up straight, a smile stretching his grotesque scars. "As much as I love playing with you Batsy," he leered aloud to thin air, "I'm going to have to pass on this one. This is going to end _now_. You see, I have places to go, things to do, people to kill, and I can't have you hanging over me like some bad smell. As much as it will pain you, I've moved on, we couldn't have lasted forever. It's not you, it's me. Perhaps one day…"

'_You're sick.'_

"Perhaps, but I'm going to make myself better." Breaking into a wild laugh, Joker turned and stalked from the room, spreading his arms like wings as he called out "Start running Batsy, I'm coming for you!"


	2. Chapter 2

"Master Bruce?"

Bruce Wayne, the face behind Batman's mask, awoke with a start to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the unmistakably British voice of his friend and butler Alfred. His hands closed around the silken sheets that covered his until recently sleeping body, whilst his brain tried to figure out where he was. His sleep-blurred eyes focused on the glass cup of coffee that was being held out to him and he automatically took it, not noticing how the first gulp scalded his tongue.

"Are you alright, Master Bruce? You did tell me to wake you at this time." The butler sounded vaguely annoyed, but there was an underlying current of concern in his voice too.

"Alfred!" Bruce gasped, seeming to only have just registered the presence of his friend. The words came out thickly around his burnt tongue.

Raising an eyebrow, Alfred set down the tray he was holding on the bedside table and leant over his employer. "Are you feeling quite alright?" He enquired, placing the back of his hand to the millionaire's forehead just as he used to do when Bruce was a boy and complaining of a deadly fever on a Monday morning. The skin beneath his well-trained hand felt sweaty and flushed, but not feverish. Bruce was physically healthy at least.

Ducking out from under Alfred's hand with all the squirmishness of the boy he had been all those years ago, Bruce looked up and met the eyes of the older man. He was about to speak, but instead all he did was smile at the familiar face of the man who had brought him up in the difficult years following his parent's deaths. It had been months since he'd seen that benevolent countenance, ever since he had gone on the run from the police and now to be woken up by it felt so good, so peaceful.

"I'm glad I came home, Alfred."

The old man broke into a matching smile and for a moment laid his hand on Bruce's shoulder. "Me too." He lingered a second longer, his eyes troubled, perhaps about to say something more, but then he turned away and went about the room putting things in order.

Bruce settled comfortably back against his pillows, coffee cradled in his hands, absentmindedly watching as he let his mind wander. He thought back to the night he had arrived at the penthouse, just a few days ago although it had already begun to feel like a lifetime, his Batman armour in shards and tatters, dripping with rain. Alfred hadn't seemed surprised at all to find the broken, bloody fugitive on his doorstep, had simply said "Welcome home" and let him in, as if Bruce had just come back from a Sunday drive instead of a months long hiding, hunted as a killer.

Whilst his mind had free reign, allowed to wander without conscious check, it took him back to the disturbing dream that had visited him in the night. The memory of it hit him full force, instantly shattering the pleasant weekend feeling he had been entertaining. Again, he was trapped in the ruinous twists and turns that served as his nemesis Joker's mind. Again, he was buffeted by those depraved thoughts and actions, in control of himself but not his surroundings. It had been a very unpleasant dream, but sitting here in his bed, sunlight streaming in through the windows, he was no longer sure he could trust it. After all, Doctor Strange, the reason for the psychic link that had been created between him and Joker, was in a coma and therefore unable to re-establish the link. It couldn't have happened without him. Perhaps a little hospital visit was in order, just in case…

"Going somewhere?" Alfred asked as he watched his employer push aside his blankets and stand with sudden resolve. He gave Bruce a second or two to cast helplessly around the room for his suit before walking over with it neatly folded over the crook of his arm. Looking at this wiry man still befuddled with sleep and his hair sticking up at the back where he'd slept on it, Alfred found it difficult to reconcile him with the assured, in-control Batman.

"Oh, uh, thank you Alfred." Spotting his clothes, Bruce relieved the older man of their burden and slipped his pants on, closely followed by shirt and suit jacket. "I just need to take a ride to Gotham General, there's someone I need to see."

"Nothing serious, I hope?"

The hapless millionaire smiled wryly, patting all over himself in a futile search for his wallet and car keys. "No, nothing a bunch of grapes and a bouquet of flowers wouldn't cure."

"I take it that Master Bruce Wayne is back from his cruise then." Handing over the sought after objects that had been left carefully on the surface of the bedroom's desk, Alfred mustered all his training as a butler in order to help him maintain a straight face. The things that must go on in that young man's mind, he thought to himself with a kind of despairing fondness.

"Yes, send round a memo." Bruce seamlessly took the keys and wallet, depositing them into his pants pockets with an air of profound distraction.

"Very good, sir. And the Batman, sir?"

"Haven't seen him. The last I heard, the police weren't so sure of his whereabouts either."

"I'll keep it that way, sir."

Bruce finally seemed to come to the full realisation of where he was. Looking around, he blinked a little and smiled at his friend, his mind back in the present. "Thank you, Alfred. I'll be back this afternoon."

"I'll have lunch ready and waiting on the table, sir." Alfred spoke with arch humour, designed to hide his fear that the young millionaire would not be returning. It was a fear that he'd had to live with ever since Bruce had taken on the mantle of Batman, but it had increased tenfold after the whole business with Joker and Harvey Dent's death. There'd been a while where he'd fully expected never to see his respected employer and friend ever again.

"Be careful," he added suddenly, turning to the door, but Bruce was already gone.

* * *

Parts of Gotham Central Hospital were still being rebuilt after the Joker had blown them up during his reign of terror, but Hugo Strange was in a ward that had escaped the worst of the blast and was far away from the noise and bustle of builders. Another result of the explosion was that security had been tightened a lot, and even Bruce Wayne, well-known playboy and millionaire, was finding it difficult to get in to pay a visit.

"Close friends and family _only_," the receptionist repeated in her sing-song monotone, fingers dancing intimately over the computer keyboard on her desk.

"But I'm one of the main funders of Arkham Asylum, I practically paid for that place. I think I have every right –"

"Hello, Gotham Central Hospital, how may I help you?" The receptionist picked up the ringing telephone without missing a single beat in the rhythm of her typing. She didn't even bother to acknowledge Bruce. Obviously she felt there was no more she could do for him.

"-Both financially and morally, to visit Doctor Strange when he's sick," he continued a little louder, trying to compete with the woman's voice.

"Excuse me sir," fixing the increasingly harassed visitor with a hard glare, the receptionist placed one hand lightly over the mouthpiece of the receiver, "If you could try to keep it down, I'm taking a phone call."

"Of course, sorry." Armed with nothing but an oversized bouquet of flowers, Bruce felt distinctly helpless.

The soft 'ding' of a descending lift to his right distracted him from his frustrated train of thought. Turning towards the source of the noise, he saw a white-coated doctor stepping out of the elevator's sliding metal doors, pushing thick-rimmed glasses up his nose as he consulted the clipboard in his hand. With absolution in mind, Bruce hurried towards the other man.

"Excuse me…" he started to reach out to lightly touch the doctor's forearm but then decided that he didn't want to. After his experiences in Arkham he wasn't sure if he would ever feel truly comfortable around anything white and coat-like ever again. "You wouldn't happen to know what ward Hugo Strange is on, would you?"

The doctor halted in his tracks and looked around like a sleepwalker that has just been awakened. Unbidden, old wives tales about the danger of waking sleepwalkers came to Bruce's mind, but he stoically pushed them aside and focused on reality. He'd had more than enough of superstition and psyches and things he couldn't see. There was comfort to be had in cold, hard, empirical fact.

"Oh, um," the harassed doctor consulted his clipboard once again, perhaps hoping to find a script written out for him in clear, neat letters. "Can't you ask the receptionist?"

Bruce glanced over his shoulder and the doctor followed his gaze to the secretary, who was in engrossed in her phone and computer keyboard. A gangly adolescent had approached the desk and was waiting with a bright blush to be noticed; whilst the receptionist glanced up every now and again to give him a look that said he was wasting everybody's time, but especially hers because she was _busy_. The doctor exhaled noisily, in the manner of one who has far too many worries on his mind, all of them clamouring for immediate attention. Bruce knew that feeling well.

"I see," the doctor continued after a moment's hesitation. "I actually just came from checking up on Mister Strange, but if you're planning on visiting him you're going to be disappointed. He's in a very deep coma, displaying only the weakest life signs." He exhaled another world-weary breath, flipping over a few pages on his clipboard with a distracted air. "What relation to him did you say you were again?"

"I didn't. I'm his… cousin. I got a phone call this morning from the hospital saying that he'd woken up a little."

"I can't imagine why… He hasn't shown any sign of improvement that I know of since being brought in. If anything, he's been deteriorating." The doctor at that point managed to recover enough social graces to add "I'm sorry."

Frustrated as he was by this news, Bruce managed to play the part of the grieving, disappointed relative perfectly. He thanked the doctor in a subdued voice and shook the man's hand before walking away, shoulders slumped.

Outside of the hospital, he stood and let the chill breeze wash refreshingly over his face, ruffling his hair and fluttering the open neck of his shirt. Looking up at the gunmetal sky he could see faint grey storm clouds massing in the distance, a reminder of the rain storm that had hit Gotham the previous night. It looked like the streets were in for another soaking. The air smelt clean and fresh.

Standing there, it was more difficult than ever to believe that the dream he'd had last night had been anything more than that, a figment of his imagination. There was no way that the psychic link could have been re-forged without Doctor Strange waking from the coma that kept his mind exhausted and sleeping. It had been nothing more than a dream. In fact, standing under that bright sky it was very difficult to believe in anything like telepathy, mad scientists and killer clowns. He even found it strange to think that he was the vigilante Batman, up until recently the protector of this city but now hunted for murders he didn't commit. It all sounded like some kind of story, not real life at all.


	3. Chapter 3

Rain lashed Joker's face as he ran through the evening streets of Gotham, getting into his eyes and making them sting. Turning a corner at a haphazard pace, he swiped a hand across his eyes to clear them, not caring if he smudged the oily make up on his face, smearing it. He didn't notice how his hand came away streaked with black and white, all his attention was focused on the signal in his head. Brighter and more reliable than the smashed Bat-signal above Gotham police headquarters, this one came from the very soul of the Batman, linking hero and villain by an invisible thread. All Joker had to do was follow it and he would have the Bat.

That damned Bat. He came to a halt beneath the harsh circle of light cast by a prematurely aflame street lamp and turned his face up to the sky, opening his mouth to drink in the contaminated rainwater. That Bat was always in his head, he couldn't be gotten rid of and now, just when Joker was ready to move onto new ventures, Batsy was talking in his head again.

The clown chuckled deeply, his tongue slithering out to clean his lips of rain drops. If fate wanted to push him and the Bat together again then very well, he would break the masked vigilante's mind; make them two crazies of a kind. What would fate think of that? Batsy wouldn't escape him this time.

Uttering a gleeful howl, a hound on the scent of its prey, Joker took off again. The street ahead of him thrummed with an energy he couldn't explain, leading him to the man he sought and it was infectious. He was starting to feel excited by this little excursion, starting to enjoy himself. How could he have forgotten the thrill of the chase? Laughing, he picked up the speed of his awkward lurching gait, thinking up innumerable ways of torturing the insanity out of his intended victim.

He caught himself humming 'I'm Singing in the Rain' in a low, creaky baritone and stopped once again, this time in amusement. A glance around told him that the wet street was deserted and he had all night to get to where he was going and just when would he get a chance like this again? With this in mind, he indulged in a few improvised dance steps, singing quietly to himself. All he needed now was a lamppost and a trilby hat and he could… he could… could…

The invisible thread he'd been following had been snapped. It was gone. Faltering, falling silent mid-song, he pressed a hand to the side of his head and concentrated. Nothing. Alone with his own thoughts, his head felt rather empty, like something vital was missing. He turned a slow circle, looking for the shimmering line of energy that had led him on, but there was nothing to be seen except rain and concrete.

"Please miss, can't Batsy come out and play?" the clown muttered distractedly. Of course, there was no answer.

"Look at me, I'm all dressed up with no one to kill," he continued, glancing down at himself and feeling the weight of the arsenal of weaponry concealed about his person. There was no way he could go back to his flat for a quiet evening in with the radio now. Thoughtfully licking his scars, he reached into his coat and pulled out a gun, idly spinning it in his gloved fingers. If he couldn't find old Bats, then he'd just have to lure the masked crime-fighter to him.

Another survey of the street informed Joker that light was spilling out onto the pavement from the windows of a store front. This was as good a place to vent some pent up aggression on as any, so he stalked towards it, humming under his breath once again. Wet hair plastered his face, obscuring his vision and he absently pushed it back with his gun hand. Now that he was closer he could see that the building, lit up like a homing beacon above a dark and stormy sea to guide weary travellers to the shore, was a travel agents. This brought a bitter smile to the clown's face.

Shadows flitted back and forth behind the large windows, there were still people inside, carrying out last minute tasks before they could finally close up and go home for the night. There was the silhouette of a woman perched on the edge of a desk as she sipped at a paper cup of coffee, a trick of the light distorting her and making her outline appear fantastically elongated. The shadow of a man, tall and looming, stopped briefly beside the apparition to lay a hand upon her shoulder. Joker stood in the gutter and watched the happy little scene for a few moments. Then he casually snapped open the cartridge of his gun to make sure it was fully loaded.

When the little bell above the travel agent's door gave a tinkle to announce a new customer, someone automatically spoke up "I'm sorry, we're just about to close." Then the woman holding the coffee cup, of normal proportions after all looked up and saw the smear-faced gun-toting horror standing in a puddle of his own dripping rainwater and she began to scream.

With an exaggerated wince at the sound, Joker placed one hand over his ear, whilst firing at the ceiling with the other. A small shower of plaster drifted down around him, the powder sticking to his wet clothes. His ears continued to ring from the gunshot, making it seem as though the woman still screamed even though she had ceased. Four pairs of eyes, round and glazed like marbles, stared fearfully at him from ashen faces. He broke into a bright, friendly grin.

"Why so serious?" he asked with a smile, glancing around at the frozen travel agents. Nobody answered, nobody even met his gaze. "Well? Isn't anybody going to offer me a hot drink? I've just walked across town in the pouring rain to have a little, ah, _business_ talk with you people and not one of you is polite enough to offer me a drink." Still there was no response.

Shrugging philosophically, Joker primed his gun ready to fire again. This seemed to have the effect of breaking one young travel agent's paralysis. The man snatched the flimsy cup from the woman frozen with fear to the edge of her desk and rushed it forwards to the madman standing by the door. His hands shook terribly, almost spilling the steaming liquid all over himself. Joker relieved the man of the half-empty cup, glanced into its murky depths and then flung it nonchalantly against the wall. The employee cringed.

"Whatever happened to service with a smile?" Reaching out, the clown lightly cupped the other man's face in a gloved hand. He could see in the other's eyes that the rest of the world had ceased to exist and he relished this as much as the man's whimper and the sickly smile that made his thin face look as though it were about to burst into tears. All those special little emotions that have to be savoured… Having gotten his smile, Joker returned it politely and patted the man's cheek. "That's better. Now, what's your name?"

"St-st-st…"

The Joker rolled his eyes then made an elaborate show of checking the watch he wasn't wearing.

"Steve."

"Well, _Steve_, you see I have a little problem that I'd like you to help me out with. It's just a tiny, little problem, I'm sure you'll find a solution." The clown prince slung an arm around the travel agent's shoulders and led him over to a desk. A quick survey told him that no one was planning on any heroics; they all seemed to be locked in a state of shock, so he guided Steve down onto the chair and sat on the desk himself. Resting one foot on the plastic arm of the chair, he sat back in a relaxed pose and continued to talk, completely at ease.

"I haven't been having a very good time recently, life has been getting me down you know. So I thought to myself 'what do people usually do when they're feeling over-stressed?' Then the answer came to me – they go on vacation."

"You've come to the right place," Steve seemed to feel compelled to chip in.

Joker glanced at the man disdainfully. "Please don't interrupt me when I'm talking." Cocking the gun, he casually pressed the muzzle up against Steve's sweating forehead. The man's skin had gone a peculiar shade of grey, tinged with green. Joker very much hoped that Steve wasn't planning on passing out before he had heard what the criminal had to say. He paused a moment, licking his lips as he tried to pick up the lost thread of his conversation.

"I thought maybe a little trip to Hawaii would be good, I could work on my tan. So I got all ready and packed and then…" he paused significantly, leaning in close to the other man with a frown on his face, "_then_ the little voice in my head decides to speak up and ruin all my plans. Not just _any_ voice, one particular voice, I'm sure you'd recognise it if you heard it, but I can't go on vacation until that voice is silenced good and proper.

And that's where _you_ come in, Steve." Noticing suddenly that the travel agent had some of Joker's own make up smeared on his cheek, the clown reached forwards to diligently wipe it off, accidently extending the mark. Steve flinched in alarm, his eyes fluttering up to the whites before he was able to regain full mastery consciousness. Joker smiled reassuringly and the man nearly fainted again.

"If I can't get out of town until I have this little, hm-m, _mess_ cleaned up," the criminal continued unperturbed, "then _nobody_ is allowed out of town. You and the rest of your travel agents are to prevent anyone from leaving Gotham. I don't care how you do it, book whole flights for the Invisible Man, kill all of the pilots, whatever it takes to get it done. Oh," he leant in closer, glancing up at the security camera that had been recording him since he'd stepped into the room, "and if I find out that _anyone_, just one person, has made it out, even if they've been carried over the border on the back of a donkey, then I shall kill you and everyone you've ever cared about."

Sitting back reflectively, Joker thought that last line may have been a little trite and melodramatic. He glanced around at the other travel agents in order to gage their reactions, but their faces were all blank with horror so there was no help to be had from them. A slight pause told him that the Batman wouldn't be chipping in with a critique either. But never mind, life went on. Lazily, he put away his gun and then searched the pockets in the lining of his coat for a different weapon.

"Hey, Steve… you wanna know how I got these scars?"

There was no reply. Puzzled, Joker looked up only to find that Steve had fainted dead away.


	4. Chapter 4

Commissioner Gordon stared down at the report on his desk in front of him until it started to blur and lose all semblance of meaning. With a sigh, he removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, before putting them back on and looking at the report again. It was still unreadable. He was just starting to think that perhaps he should call it a day and simply go home to his family when the voice spoke behind him.

"Commissioner…"

Gordon immediately lunged across his desk for the pistol he'd recently taken to keeping beneath a pile of papers in his in-tray. Hands shaking so much that he doubted his ability to even shoot straight if the need to defend himself did arise, the weapon jumping disobediently in his fingers, he swung around to confront the impenetrable gaze of the Batman.

"Stay back, or I'll shoot," the Commissioner warned, glad to find that at least his voice wasn't shaking as much as his hands.

It was difficult to tell behind that mask, but the vigilante gave off the impression of having one eyebrow raised. His eyes fixed pointedly on the shaking weapon and then moved up to Gordon's flustered, tired face. "I'm not here to fight you, Commissioner."

Gone was the edgy, uncharacteristic agitation that had so marked Jim's last meeting with the Bat. That evening he had seemed like a whole different person, highly-strung and secretly smiling, but now the Batman stood before Gordon just as he had always stood, an impenetrable force, something carved from stone and given life by Pagan gods. Relaxing a little, Gordon placed the gun back down on the desk, although he left it within plain view and easy reach. Batman typically hadn't moved a muscle, so Gordon politely waved a hand to bid him go ahead and speak. He looked expectantly up at the other wonderfully unfathomable man.

"I wanted to explain what happened the night I was arrested."

"You mean when you tried to kill me?" Jim glanced automatically at the gun, but he didn't believe that he would have to use it now. He didn't blame Batman for not answering, could in a way understand why he just stood there silently with an unreadable expression on his face, so he continued to talk.

"The press have been saying it wasn't really you, you know, that it was some paranoid schizophrenic who thought he was you."

"Commissioner, you should know…"

Gordon held up a hand to silence the crime-fighter. "We'll deal with this later, Batman, right now there's more important things that need to be discussed."

The tension in the room, which the commissioner only just became conscious of, disappeared along with those words. It was back to business as usual. He could almost feel Batman's relief as the other man crossed the room towards him.

"What is it?"

In answer, Gordon pushed the confidential report he had been trying to read across the desk and watched it be picked up by a gauntleted hand.

"It happened last night, early evening. Were you aware of any disturbances at around that time?"

For a moment there was nothing but the rustling of paper to fill the considered silence and then Batman eventually said "No, not that I can recall." He went back to the report, leafing through the thin sheaf of pages. As he read, his face grew grimmer and his jaw clenched. Having read the last page, he set it firmly back down on the desk, his hand left covering it as if trying to contain the situation.

"Why hasn't there been any news coverage about this?"

This slightly irked Gordon, who had fought strenuously to keep the media out of the developing case. His moustache bristled slightly as he answered "We're keeping it all very quiet, there's no point in starting a city-wide panic."

Batman seemed to think about this for a moment, and then he very slowly pushed the report across the desk towards the commissioner. He tapped the paper idly with his index finger, drawing unconscious attention to the red rubber-stamped 'Urgent' across the top. "Do you think he'll strike again?"

"Undoubtedly. This was just a warm-up… If you'll excuse the pun."

"Pun excused. I think it would be best if I went and had a look at the scene myself."

"Batman…" Conscious of the vigilante's frequent disappearing acts, Gordon pushed his chair back quickly and stood, careful to keep the masked man always in sight so that he couldn't escape unseen. "I'm finished for the day; let me drive you down there."

* * *

Joker was sitting hunched over a large construction map of Gotham that had been spread out over the carpet, scribbling diligently away on it with a red pen, when he suddenly realised how cold he felt. In fact, he was freezing.

He slowly laid the pen down next to a chunky, half-coloured in 'X' he had drawn over Gotham Airport and glanced over to the window of his flat. The curtains still hung in tatters from where he had attacked them with a knife a couple of nights ago, but the window was firmly closed and fully in tact, so he wasn't getting a chilling breeze from there. Unable to keep from shivering a little, he rolled his shirt sleeves down from where they had been neatly folded to above his elbows and buttoned the cuffs. He couldn't remember ever having been so cold. It was this poxy little flat, the heating must have broken.

Plans abandoned because of the frailties of the human body and the negligence of lazy landlords, Joker retrieved his coat from where it had been flung earlier across an armchair. Bundling himself up in it, the cold dragging itself up and down his bones with skittering claws, he wandered over to the apartment's radiator and inspected it. His hand held to its rusty metallic surface, he could tell that it was on, but the heat seemed to have no effect on him. He remained irreparably cold, and as if that wasn't enough, he was starting to develop a headache.

Logic would dictate that this strange chill had been brought on by the evening Joker had spent out in the rain, but the Clown Prince had never been one to trust logic. Sprawling in his armchair, burying his nose in the musty folds of the coat that was failing to warm him, he placed all the blame squarely on the Batman. Batman was behind this current misfortune, there was no doubt about it. Closing his eyes, he could even see the masked figure, as plainly as if he had been standing right in front of him. The bat was standing in a spot Joker recognised, staring out at a frozen body of water… and that was when Joker realised the psychic link was up and running once again…

* * *

The sun was beginning to set in a watery sky as Commissioner Gordon parked his unmarked vehicle just on the outskirts of the police barricade around Gotham River. He opened the door promptly and stepped out, glad to be free of the intense atmosphere of the car. He'd never realised before how trying time spent with the Batman was, due to the fact that they usually spent a few minutes together at most. The man had hardly spoken a word on the journey, not that Gordon would have expected anything different from him. He busied himself with polishing his glasses whilst Batman got out and walked around to join him.

Together, but in silence, they crossed the discreet police borders and walked to the banks of the river. Gordon had already seen the sight once this morning and some progress had been made in clearing up since then, but it was still distressing to see the mighty waters of the river frozen solid. There was a discarded shopping trolley sticking up in the centre of the ice, like some bizarre flag of conquering victory. Beside him, he heard Batman draw in a sharp breath.

"Incredible," the masked vigilante murmured in his deep-throated growl. He advanced upon the stretch of ice and knelt down beside it, placing a gauntleted hand on its glittering surface. "Completely frozen." The fingers of his glove came away tipped with frost and he inspected them closely, although Gordon knew there was nothing unusual to be found. Police tests run on the ice that morning had returned with nothing more useful to report than it was just normal, average ice. Just one dead end after another…

It took a few moments of expectant silence before he realised that Batman had asked him a question and was waiting for an answer, watching him from over his shoulder.

"Sorry, I was miles away."

"You look tired, Commissioner. You should go home and get some rest."

"No, I'm perfectly alright."

Batman made a sound that just might have been a disbelieving grunt and turned back to his contemplation of the frozen river. "So the perp behind this is calling himself Mister Freeze?"

"Yes."

"Another gimmicked madman who thinks he can take on my City." The crime-fighter stood up and dusted off his hands in a derisive manner. "He'll probably get in touch with us sooner or later to make his demands."

"If his plans are as original as his name then we can expect that to be soon." Gordon turned from his vigil of the street behind him with a wry smile on his face, only to find that Batman had disappeared. "Was it something I said?" the Commissioner appealed to thin air with weary humour. The ice crackled slightly under the city's fluctuating temperature, but made no further comment.


	5. Chapter 5

The constant drone of aeroplanes taking off and coming into land suffused the hot, stagnant air in the departure lounge, making the room seem to vibrate with an energy all of its own. People waiting for their flights stood about in small groups, nursing drinks to calm their nerves or cheap paperback novels to dull their senses, talking in strained voices amongst themselves. A small television set was affixed to a corner of the wall above the bar, making its own contribution to the noise level, but only one person seemed to be paying any attention to it.

On first glance there seemed to be nothing remarkable about the lone figure sat hunched at the bar, an untouched drink in front of him, but a closer look would reveal certain irregularities that marked him as no ordinary traveller. In fact, he was no traveller at all. He'd been at the same post since the early hours of the morning and he had not a passport or a plane ticket on him.

The room was dim, a few of the lights having blown in an electrical fault, and in the uncertain light the heavy coat that the figure wore with the lapels turned up around his neck appeared to be black. If anyone had bothered getting close enough however, then they would have seen that the garment was in fact purple. And if anyone had been brave enough to get even closer than that, then they would have seen that the man's face was disfigured by so much more than the shadows his turned-up lapels threw across his mouth. They almost might have been able to discern a faintly green-tinged hairline beneath the dark knitted cap that hid most of the figure's hair.

Of course, no one was going to see that because no one was going to get that close. Some deep, primal instinct warned the waiting fliers away from the lone figure without their even being consciously aware of it. Although it might have also had something to do with the occasional deep growls and throaty chuckles that issued at random from deep within the man's throat. The consensual birth that had been left around the figure didn't bother him, after all, the Joker wasn't in the most sociable of moods that morning.

Each roar of a plane's engine hoisting one of the great metal birds off of the ground was a reminder of the Joker's failure. Every passenger off on pleasure or business, every nervous flier and loud tourist was a personal slur on his ability to strike fear into Gotham's heart. He'd told that travel agent that he wanted _no one_ to leave the city, so why did the planes still fly? It just didn't make any sense. People should be running scared, panicking, trapped inside their own fear and instead they were just getting on with their ordered little lives as if nothing was amiss. Had Joker not told that travel agent that if anyone left the city then people he cared about would die? What had gone wrong? This was how it felt then to be ignored. He did not like the feeling at all. Even the voice inside his head had stayed silent, not taking any notice of the joke.

His hand on the bar top curled into a loose fist. Hidden within the sleeve of his jacket was a knife, the metal blade cool and smooth against his skin. He entertained notions of releasing its brutality upon the buzzing room, laying waste to its occupants in a senseless gluttony of violence. That would teach them to ignore him. But no, he forced the hand to relax, a slaughter would be too simple, too obvious, he needed something more subtle. He needed something worthy of the Batman's attention.

The small television screen flickered, catching Joker's eye and he looked up to find that his favourite programme was on: the news. His favourite programme because he had made quite a few appearances on it in what was beginning to feel like the distant past. He smiled to himself as a grim-faced reporter appeared on the screen, subconsciously pulling his coat closer around his throat to hide his telltale scars.

People's chatter began to die down as they recognised the reporter's location as part of their city and the gap around Joker closed. A small throng of people pressed up against him, their slack faces turned up to the screen that just a few moments ago had been talking for him alone. It was delicious picturing their reactions if they knew just who they were jostling up against, if they knew that the person they were so carelessly bumping into was the reason for the reporter's sombre appearance. For surely he was what the news story was about, the view of Gotham River displayed behind the reporter was one Joker recognised as having seen the night before, although he couldn't quite remember why. But after all, what other kind of catastrophe could possible have hit Gotham apart from him?

"…This message was received in the early hours of yesterday morning and despite attempts made by the authorities to keep it secret, we've been able to gain access to a copy of it. Here is the disturbing footage that your police wanted to keep from you."

That was strange, Joker thought to himself in the brief lull as technology worked to broadcast the promised message, he didn't remember recording any sort of threat or demands. As far as he was aware, the only copy of his current game-plan was on that travel agent's CCTV camera tape and he didn't think he'd gone back to retrieve that, nor did he think those types of camera even recorded sound. Still, perhaps it wasn't so strange – there were a lot of things he couldn't remember, especially where his personal past was involved. Whatever it was, there was no doubt he would be reminded of it soon enough.

"Oh, my god…" A woman at his elbow exclaimed, her hand flying up to her mouth in a gesture of horror. Encouraged out of his thoughts by this reaction, he raised his eyes expectantly to the screen and almost let out an exclamation himself. He was not met with a shaky recording of his own helplessly grinning face and mocking laughter, but a clear, crisp transmission of a face he didn't recognise speaking in a cultured German accent. That wasn't right, that wasn't right at all.

The recording was of a man sitting calmly on a straight-backed chair, hands resting placidly on his thighs as he talked evenly to whatever recording equipment had been trained on him. Unlike the few messages Joker had recorded, which crackled with the clown's frantic instability and hungering madness, the one recorded by this unknown man was in stark contrast controlled and untouched by emotion. Except for the unaccountable, weirdly futuristic get-up the man was dressed in, the recording might have been a sombre academic lecture to be transmitted to eager students.

"No doubt by now," the recording spoke to the hushed departure lounge, "you will have realised the fate of your Gotham River, frozen solid by me. Know that this is only a small demonstration of the power at my command. If you do not give me what I require, then your city will enter a new Ice Age."

The only thing that kept the cultured man's words from being as clear as they could have been was a transparent helmet worn over his head. It was reminiscent of the costumes worn in science fiction movies made before space exploration had actually been made possible. The helmet was of a curved, rectangular shape, closing around his strong-featured face in smooth perfection and bolted onto the bulky pale blue suit he wore with a thick metal collar. The suit itself added to the anachronistic spaceman image, the effect enhanced by the mysterious tubing that could be seen just beneath the material in the lining, traversing all around it like a complex road grid.

"The cold is a surprisingly destructive force. A city can quickly become besieged by cold temperatures. Roads become blocked, electricity goes down and water supplies freeze into uselessness. Life could not be supported for long in such an environment. I would not like to see the citizens of Gotham suffer from such a fate.

"However, to help yourselves, you must also help me. All I ask in return for keeping your city safe from the cold is a small sum of money. A mere fifty million dollars. I also request nothing more than that my personal freedom not be taken from me.

"I know you will not disappoint. If you do, Gotham's fuel supplies will be the next to freeze."

With a smooth electronic beep, the recording finished and it was the news reporter's face being broadcast once again. "We can only ask ourselves if this terrorist threat will be handled as appallingly as that of the Joker's. At least there has been no word of the fugitive Batman since he allegedly tried to assassinate Commissioner James Gordon. Hopefully, by now he will have learnt his lesson and will stay out of this situation.

"When we tried to get a statement from the authorities on the recorded message from the terrorist calling himself Mister Freeze, they refused to…"

But the reporter was talking to an empty room, save for one lone figure sat hunched at the bar. The departure lounge had been fled from with the ending of the transmission, as if its threat could be outrun if only one could get far away enough from the place one had heard it. What they really hoped to achieve by running was unknown by Joker, who hadn't even realised that he was alone. His entire existence had shrunken down to that television screen, his whole reality depended on his being able to grasp the idea that there was someone _else_ waging war on Gotham, and when war was waged on Gotham it was waged on the Batman. A muscle twitched deep within the line of the Joker's clenched jaw. Once he had grasped that idea, he thought to himself, he would squeeze it and squeeze it until he had choked it to death. Gotham was _his_ and he didn't like anyone else playing with his toys. Did no one have any manners anymore?

For a moment he was so angry, so consumed by jealous rage that he almost tore the departure lounge down around him. But that would have been the reaction of a _crazy_ man and if the Joker knew one thing, he knew he wasn't crazy. He was the only sane one in this madhouse of a universe. So, he did what any sane man in his position would do, the only thing a sane man _could_ do in this nutty old world – he threw back his head and laughed until tears ran from his eyes.

Some men wanted to freeze the world, others just wanted to watch it burn. Joker vowed that fire would soon meet ice.


	6. Chapter 6

Gordon stood at the window of his office with his hands thrust deeply into his pockets. On a closed-circuit television in the corner, a copy of the tape sent in by Mister Freeze ran on an endless loop, but the Commissioner wasn't watching it and was staring straight through the reflection it cast on the window without even seeing it. The sound had been muted, making the mouth behind the surrealistic helmet move with silent meaninglessness, but that was okay because Gordon could still hear it. He'd listened to it so many times over the past few hours that he didn't think he would ever forget the taped message.

_If you do not give me what I require, then your city will enter a new Ice Age._

Up above, rain clouds amassed around the groping fingertips of Gotham's tower rises and tall buildings. As so often with nature, as above so below, news vans amassed around the base of the Police Headquarters building. Only these storm clouds spat out news reporters and cameras instead of rain. All things considered, Jim Gordon much preferred rain. How the tape had been leaked he didn't know, he obviously couldn't trust anyone in his department. Although down that road, paranoia lies. Maybe even Freeze himself had released a copy to the media. It didn't really matter, how a video had gotten into the grasping hands of reporters was the least of his problems.

_I know you will not disappoint._

Unable to keep the ultimatum from playing over and over in his head like a broken record, Jim distractedly ran a hand back through his hair. It needed a cut. The thought was forgotten almost as soon as it had surfaced – when on earth was he going to find time for a haircut? Under current circumstances, the notion seemed almost ridiculous.

He raised his eyes to the rain-threatened city, allowing his gaze to come back into focus as he automatically scanned the horizon for the building he shared with his wife and children, even though he knew it couldn't be seen from this window. Sometimes, Barbara and the children were the only things that kept him going. When Freeze threatened Gotham city, in Gordon's mind it was his children the maniac was threatening. The constant soundtrack in his head blurred with the image of a ruined Harvey Dent pointing a gun at his eldest son and Gordon abruptly removed his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose fiercely between forefinger and thumb.

Gotham had already proved that it would not give in to terrorists, he thought as red flowers bloomed on his closed eyelids beneath the pressure from his fingertips, bleeding away the clarity of the lingering mental images. When Joker had demanded the Batman they hadn't given in, they hadn't allowed his insanity to destroy them, and so they wouldn't give in to the monetary demands of Mister Freeze. Rather than hand over the money, they would hunt Freeze down and fight him.

_If you do, Gotham's fuel supplies will be the next to freeze._

But Gotham wasn't cold and dead yet. After all that had happened, she still had a lot of fight left in her. Gotham was a survivor.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything, Commissioner."

Woken from his thoughts by that arch tone, Gordon wheeled around to face the voice, hurriedly replacing his glasses in the hopes that they would hide his tears. He found himself facing the gracefully petite form of Gotham's new DA Janice Porter, looking stylishly ruthless as ever in a sharply tailored red suit jacket and a white calf-length skirt that dared the sky to just try and rain.

"Nothing that hadn't already been interrupted," he returned somewhat testily. He meant to keep his open resentment for the woman out of his voice, but having to use up so much energy on simply remaining on his feet didn't leave him with much spare for controlling his emotions. He couldn't help it that every time he looked at Janice Porter's sternly pretty face, he saw Harvey's dead one, the spectre of a broken man who'd deserved so much more than to be replaced by a woman who had undone all of his good work. Janice Porter, DA, did not believe in such 'publicity stunts' as Harvey had 'indulged in at the expense of the people'. Just a couple of choice highlights from her acceptance speech.

"Obviously," the blonde agreed curtly. Her gaze drifted deliberately to the files and large maps of the city that haphazardly littered Gordon's desk. Both pairs of eyes found the glaring coffee stain obscuring some of the map's meticulous annotations at the same moment. The spilt beverage had caused a series of tactical blue highlighter lines to blur into incomprehension. Blustering, the Commissioner pulled a manila folder over to cover the incriminating stain. He'd meant to go and find a clean map earlier, copying out all the information that had been ruined.

"What did you want to-"

"How far have you gotten-"

Both began speaking together and then both fell silent, eyeing the other with wary contempt. Gordon made a quiet sound that might have been a snort and dropped into the chair behind his desk, making a polite little gesture with one hand. "Please, ladies first." His smile as he sat back and folded his arms was cold.

The brief look Janice gave him suggested to the Commissioner that his ironic tone had not been lost on her. But she had far too much dignity to acknowledge it in anything other than a subtle lift of one of her perfect eyebrows. "What progress have you made on-"

With unusual hostility, Gordon interrupted the new DA once again. "On looking for Mister Freeze?" Again, the spread out, soiled map was given a pointed look. Aside from the coffee stain, half a dozen colourful push pins had been added to it since that morning. Each pin was a potential hiding place for Gotham's latest costumed terrorist. "I assure you Porter, my team and I are doing everything we can to find him."

"I'm sure you are, Commissioner," the DA replied with a slight quirk at the corner of her lips, the closest she would ever come to a genuine smile in his presence. "But I wasn't asking about Freeze; I was asking about the fugitive Batman."

This irked Gordon immensely. Not for the first time he almost threw professionalism to the wind and gave into the anger welling up inside of him. Did the woman understand nothing? "With all due respect Porter," he managed through clenched teeth, "now is hardly the time to be concerning ourselves with Batman."

"My thoughts exactly, James."

He looked up sharply at her use of his first name. Usually she didn't stray away from the neutral address of 'Commissioner' and the sudden leap to first name basis was disconcerting to say the least. He didn't care for it, and neither did he care for that little smirk lingering at the edges of her sparsely made-up mouth. What he cared for even less was her saying "So perhaps you'd care to explain this to me," as she brandished a padded envelope at him. If her voice had been cold before, now it was even more frozen than the river. Had there been a barometer in the room, Gordon wouldn't have been surprised to see the room's temperature drop by a couple of degrees. A shiver ran down his spine in sympathy.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he huffed quietly, uncrossing his arms and sitting forwards in a position that was unconsciously more intimidating.

Janice did nothing but smile her insincere sub-zero smile in answer, slitting open the envelope with a beautifully manicured nail painted the same shade of red as her jacket. The Commissioner found himself thinking of his wife's nails, unpainted and bitten down to beneath the soft pads of her fingertips, and he wondered why he was making the comparison at a time such as this. The human mind was unfathomable, especially under stress.

Instead, he forced himself to focus on the VHS tape Janice was withdrawing from the envelope with no little ceremony. A small stamp on its hard plastic casing marked the tape out as CCTV footage. Suddenly, he became aware that he was sweating and passed a hand across his forehead.

"You and the Bat always did have a special relationship, didn't you?" As she spoke, the new DA crossed the room to the small television where Freeze soundlessly mouthed his demands, smoothly ejecting the tape replacing it with her own. Before she even pressed play, Gordon knew what he was going to see and his heart dropped into his stomach, a constricted white-hot ball. And then he was watching himself on the screen, descending lightly down the steps outside the police headquarters, a slim figure in grainy CCTV black and white, glancing back at his unmistakable companion. The footage clearly showed the bat-eared outlaw, cape winding sinuously around armoured legs, catching up with the police commissioner and together the two conspirators headed towards a parked car. Gordon's car, the license plate discernible despite the quality of the recording.

He watched numbly, time and date at the corner of the television screen flashing with accusatory persistence. "How-"

"I don't think you're in any position to be asking questions, _Commissioner_."

Raising his eyes wearily to the woman's, Gordon saw something he had never seen in them before – the hungry spark of twisted ambition. He'd seen it the eyes of others, but he couldn't think of a time it had ever led to anything but hurt and ruination. This was a side of herself that Janice had kept well hidden, but he was face to face with it now, her zealous hatred of the Batman. And she obviously wanted to use Gordon in her personal quest to bring the vigilante down. He felt a stab of anger at that. After all Batman had done to protect the city and still he was persecuted.

"No one else has seen this footage apart from you and me, and I rather expect you'd like to keep it that way, wouldn't you Jim?" The shortened use of his first name sounded so intrusive and gloating coming from her lips. "If you had your way, you'd probably have this tape destroyed. It doesn't look good for the Police Commissioner to be taking midnight rides with known murderers and criminals." She glanced over her shoulder at the screen, the rictus of a cruel smirk twisting her mouth. "You two looked pretty cosy together."

Gordon thought of that night in the hotel room, of the helplessly resigned look Batman had given him as he was brought down by armed policemen under Gordon's command, and said nothing. What was there to say?

Janice evidently took his silence for grudging agreement on the Commissioner's part. "I have something you want, you have something I want; the perfect conditions in which to make a deal. Either you deliver the Batman to me so I can rid the city of his menace, or I deliver this tape to the Mayor so he can ride the police force of your corruption." Her eyes flashed with unabated greed and Gordon wouldn't have been surprised to see her lick her lips, but she didn't. Oh no, she was far too ladylike for that sort of behaviour. She would stick to underhand blackmail.

There was a pressure building up behind Gordon's forehead through which he could barely hear the woman's next words.

"I'll give you twenty-four hours to decide which it will be. See you tomorrow, Jim." The new DA paused at the door, turning back and pushing a loose strand of fine blonde hair back behind her ear. When she exposed her teeth in a parting smile it looked more like a snarl. "Have a good night." With that she was gone, leaving with a coy little wriggle of her blood-red tipped fingers.

Gordon was left alone, staring blankly at his betrayal as it played out again and again on the screen. Just moments ago, although it was starting to feel like years, it had been the impassive face of Mister Freeze looped on that screen. Did Janice want him to believe that it was just one criminal swapped for another? Because he thought perhaps it was.

'_But he hasn't done anything wrong'_ the perplexed voice of Gordon's eldest son spoke up in his mind. The boy had been right that night they had stood and watched the Batman run from a crime he didn't commit. He still was right. Batman had done nothing wrong except to try and save Gotham's soul from those who would wish to break it. He put his head in his hands, dragging his fingers absently through his hair. How could he try and explain that now? That Harvey had killed himself, not murdered by Batman at all. It had all been a terrible, merciful lie. Now it had spiralled out of control as he should have known it would and caused repercussions that he should have been able to foresee.

He wished the bat-signal was still intact.

As good as the police department was, as proud as Gordon was of the men and women under his command, he knew they could not hope to bring Mister Freeze down without the help of Batman. They had grown too dependent upon him. But he couldn't lose his position. He was needed here, where he belonged, as commissioner.

He wished the Joker had never happened.

He sat behind his desk, watching his Judas kiss on the cheek of Gotham play out eternally and wished he knew what to do.


	7. Chapter 7

Gotham: the city that never sleeps because it is afraid of nightmares.

In the restless silence of a frightened child holding its breath in the dark, the only sound to be heard in the white-tiled corridors of Gotham General was a steady _beep_, _beep_, _beep_. There was no one to monitor that mechanical pulse, no one came running into the room with their crepe-soled shoes squeaking when it began to speed up. The hospital employees were far too busy making sure friends and relatives were okay to look after their patients. After all, in a world where a man could threaten to bury everything you ever cared about beneath a sheet of ice if he didn't get what he wanted, it didn't make any sense to waste time on men who most likely would never be a sentient part of that world again.

So, what should have been a joyous occasion was one celebrated alone and without comprehension. Beneath the impassive gaze of the moon, the machines that were hooked up to him beeping out a wild tattoo of life, Doctor Hugo Strange awoke from the coma that had kept him from the world. The former head of Arkham Asylum ripped the oxygen mask that had kept him artificially breathing from his face and dragged in ragged lungfuls of air like a man recovering from being drowned. His eyes rolled in sightless confusion as his shattered mind tried to cope with the first real sights and sounds that had reached it since his experiment had backfired, leaving his brain a broken wreck.

Neurons fired clumsily around the inside of his head, blazing trails of destruction in their haste to get to where they were meant to be. They screamed abuse at each other as they passed and he wanted to lift his hands to his ears to block out the noise, but he couldn't remember how to use his arms. Images of the functional hospital room with its single window merged and interchanged with rolling hills, crumbling masonry straight out of the pages of a Gothic novel, greasy kitchens, prison cells and bat-infested caves deep beneath the surface of the ground. Faceless horrors swooped down from the ceiling towards him but he didn't flinch away because he no longer knew how to be scared.

The lack of a fixed point of reference, the inability to make sense of time passing or distinguish imagination from reality didn't bother Strange. He wasn't aware that there was anything wrong. So much pressure had been put on his mind, that night in the laboratory when he had tried to make the minds of Joker and Batman one, that it had simply snapped under the strain. It was a miracle that he was even alive at all.

For an immeasurable amount of time he simply led in his neglected hospital bed and listened to the intimate sounds of his monitored heart beat, gaping in automatic breaths with a slack mouth that leaked thick strings of saliva down the side of his face. His roving eyes fixed unsteadily on the patch of moonlight reflected on the floor. In some deep and primal way, with the part of his brain that had been with him since before evolution began, he thought about how beautiful that disc of silvery light was. His hands made unconscious grasping motions.

Abruptly, the perfect patch of light was marred by a dark shadow outside falling across it, renting a hole in its purity. Or had the darkness always been there, is there, was there, will always be, only for a second? The _beep_-_beep_-_beeping_ of his heart sped up into a high-pitched whine when he saw that the dark shadow had bat ears. Whether he was really seeing this, or whether it was a product of his shattered mind, he could no longer understand, but he still understood one thing perfectly. That was why he threw back his head and began to laugh like he would never stop.

Alone in his hospital bed, trapped inside a broken mind, Doctor Strange screamed with laughter at the bat-eared shadow on his floor.

* * *

_A/N: Apologies for the shortness of this chapter, but I didn't want this section merged with another one. The next chapter will definitely be longer. =]_


	8. Chapter 8

As Hugo Strange woke to a world that no longer made sense to him, Bruce Wayne was just falling into an uneasy sleep. He hadn't bothered going to bed, thinking that he would be unable to sleep; he had instead opted for sprawling in the armchair in his sitting room. The chair overlooked the fitfully slumbering streets of Gotham, peering down on them through a bank of windows. Bruce thought that perhaps he would sit for a while, observing his home, before going to don the bat-armour. He shouldn't be going out as Batman at all, the police had their hands full enough with trying to find this Mister Freeze, but he couldn't leave the city to fend for itself.

He'd seen the message on the news earlier that day and had experienced a shameful stab of jealousy wondering why the Commissioner hadn't told him about it. Why did he have to learn about it from the news like everyone else? Thinking about it, the Commissioner hadn't been in contact since that evening they had both gone to see the frozen waters of Gotham River. True, that had only been a couple of days ago and after the incident that had gotten Batman arrested, Bruce could understand why Gordon would be reluctant to get in contact; but he still felt slightly uneasy about the matter. He wanted to be on the inside of the loop where he could be the most helpful, rather than pushed to the outside.

Even with such thoughts buzzing around the confines of his head, Bruce felt his eyelids grow heavy. He allowed them to droop, veiling the hypnotic sight of car lights crawling senselessly up and down the street outside. He thought, as his head lolled slightly, that even if Gordon had gotten in contact with him he wouldn't have been of much use. Batman had no more leads on Mister Freeze than he suspected the police had. Voices in the underground were quiet. He should really bring out the Bat and try to persuade those voices to speak a little louder.

He was doing no good just sitting around here like an old man in need of a nap after his Sunday lunch. His chin, balanced in the hollow of his hand, abruptly dropped towards the arm of the chair, and Bruce realised he had been just dozing off, causing his hand to slip from beneath him.

He could just imagine what Alfred would say if he saw his young employer with head adroop. 'You'll be no good to anyone until you've caught up on your sleep, Master Bruce. The world can wait a few more hours to be saved.' Hearing his friend's voice to perfection in his mind, Bruce decided that he would have a sleep before venturing out. Just a little sleep. After all, it was still early, maybe…

Something inside still nagged at him to get up and go out, it was his duty to do so, but his body had other ideas and refused to move.

Teetering on the brink of sleep, he happened to glance up and see the moon. It was a full one, strong and bright, and even Bruce had to admire its ghostly whiteness. It was easy to see why people had once believed there was a man in the moon, looking down on the world. He could pick out the delicate lacy shadows that formed the cratered eyes; he even thought he could tell what expression the moon-man had. At first he thought it wore a pleasant smile of benevolence, but looking closer he could see that it was in fact a contemptuous sneer. High above it all, the moon-man was cold and uncaring; harbouring nothing but indifference for the horrors he was forced to watch unfold night after night.

These disturbing hypnogogic thoughts must have followed Bruce down into sleep because he dreamt of white faces with hollow eyes. Faces that swooped around him with senseless grins, circling him like vultures whilst he stood out in the street alone and vulnerable. Jeering white faces that followed him everywhere he went and he couldn't lose them no matter how fast he ran and somewhere a car must have backfired because there was a loud bang. When he turned around to look for the source of that noise on the deserted street, he realised that he had never been running, he had been stood in this one spot all along. The looming death-shroud white faces found this funny. They must have, because they began to laugh.

When Bruce awoke just a few minutes after he had fallen asleep, he thought the sounds from his dream must have followed him into consciousness because he could still hear the eerie, unhinged laughter. It was echoey in its intensity, seeming to come from up close and very far away at the same time. He heard the noise of a car backfiring again, only that wasn't what it was at all. By now, he knew the sounds of a gunshot when he heard one.

It was then that two figures appeared in the doorway and he realised that he wasn't experiencing auditory hangovers from his dream; the nightmare had forced its way after him into the waking world and now stood before him.

Standing in the doorway of the penthouse's living room, Joker leisurely passed his tongue across his painted lips and caressed the cheek of the aged man he held captive with the side of his gun.

"Shh, shh," he murmured in a parody of tenderness as the white-haired man renewed his struggles. Glancing with lazy interest around the room lit only by the moon and lights from the street shining in through the large windows, he shuffled deeper in. His eyes fell on the slight form of a man in a chair, bathed in his own little halo of moonlight and wearing the befuddled expression of a man who isn't quite sure whether he is awake or asleep. It was the millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. Joker recognised him. His scarred face split into a grin.

"I'm looking for _Batman_," he addressed the socialite, who was starting to look more alert by the minute. He probably had a crack security team on call, not that that bothered the Joker. "I don't have an appointment, but I'm sure he'll prove, um, _accommodating_." As if trying to elaborate further on the point without being sure of how to do so, he made vague gestures in the air with his gun. "So, uh, have you _seen_ him anywhere? The Batman? It's really quite important that I speak to him. You might say," and here he looked down pointedly at his captive, "You might say it's a matter of life or death."

"I've told you, he's not here," Alfred spat in defiant indignation, struggling against the arm clamped over his windpipe. The musty smell of the too-warm body he was pressed back against was starting to make him feel nauseous, light-headed. Most of all though, he was angry. He wished fervently for an opportunity to injure the psychotic freak that had caused so much trouble and death.

"_I'm_ the only one allowed to make jokes around here, old man," Joker snarled, tightening his grip with half a mind to choke him.

As he went to strike the geriatric with the butt of his gun, the young millionaire stood up with a swift determination that intrigued Joker, making him stay his hand. He'd seen such movement before. The look of self-righteous anger, pompous and misguided, he recognised that too, although it looked different somehow. He tilted his head slightly off to one side in interest, allowing his smile to widen. Something told Joker that although the millionaire was not what he had come here to find, he would nevertheless prove a most entertaining distraction.

"I know where Batman is," Bruce spoke up. To Joker, his voice sounded like a silk-wrapped crowbar, its initial softness belying a steely strength and resolve. He inclined his head to bid it continue.

"If you let him go," the old man was indicated, "I'll take you to Batman."

The clown considered this proposition for a moment. "Um, no."

Then everything seemed to happen at once.

Alfred, seeing his and Bruce's chances of getting away with their lives growing slimmer by the second, drove his elbow back hard into the clown's stomach.

Bruce started forwards to help his friend, but a terrible pain seemed to sear his head in two, forcing him to stagger back through a haze of blinding light to collapse on his chair.

The Joker, growing bored with the game, went to prime his gun ready to fire and received an elbow to the stomach instead. Surprised and winded, he dropped his captive and staggered backwards. His back hit the wall at the same time an unbearable pain hit his head and he fell through a screaming cloud of bats to the floor.

For a moment after, nothing seemed to exist except for the disturbing symphony of a butler's panting breaths, a millionaire's moans of pain and clown's quiet whoops of laughter. The moment hung in the air, a perfect suspended bubble of time, and then it popped.

Bruce was the first to recover, the pain in his head dulling to an ache as suddenly as it had come upon him. Beneath the ache, he could hear a low chanting; lilting words that repeated themselves over and over, but he chose to ignore them. Instead, he hurried over to Alfred and put a supportive arm around his old friend.

"Are you alright, Alfred?"

"Never better, sir," the man offered up a reassuring smile, and Bruce noticed for the first time the fresh bruise that assaulted Alfred's cheek and turned his right eye bloodshot. His hands clenched in anger the he could have allowed such a thing to happen.

Together, they turned to look at the creator of the violation.

Joker was on the floor where he had fallen, face pressed against it and his shoulders shaking with laughter. Coming up for air, he fixed Bruce with feverish eyes and giggled "You can't take me to Batman, you _are_ Batman." His voice came out high pitched with mirth and he had to bury his face in his hands again, so powerful was his hilarity.

Bruce could feel Alfred's eyes turn to him in consternation, but he kept his face impassive, his attention fixed on the clown. "How did you find me?"

'_Oh Bats, don't be so naïve. You _know _how I found you.'_

Despite a very slight flinch that couldn't have been noticed unless one was looking out for it, Bruce gave no indication of having heard a voice in his head. It was surprising how quickly he got used to it again, and how easy it was to reply with his thoughts instead of out loud. It felt natural to do so in a way that disturbed him.

'_The psychic link? That's impossible, Strange hasn't come out of his coma.'_

Finally mustering enough strength to overcome his amusement, Joker started to get up. On his feet, he made no move towards the two other men. In fact, he appeared oblivious to their presence, stretching and cracking his joints as he stared distantly out of the window.

'_For a guy who wears bat ears on his head, you sure are stupid sometimes.'_

Deeming it beneath his dignity to answer, Batman gradually became aware of Alfred looking at him strangely. He supposed he did make for an odd sight, just standing there silently, his gaze fixed intently on his painted nemesis.

It must have been a very disconcerting sight for Alfred, the silence; but no such thing existed for his employer. Even without the Joker speaking directly to him, the millionaire could still hear the buzz of the man's thoughts, like the constant hum of an electrical appliance when it is switched on.

A hand reached out tentatively towards his arm and Bruce turned to intercept it. "Alfred, could you-"

"Phone the police, Master Bruce? I'll do it right away."

That was the last thing he wanted, the police getting involved in this. "No, there's no need for that," he interjected hurriedly, causing Alfred to stop in his tracks with a puzzled expression. Bruce closed his eyes for a second and placed a hand lightly to his temple, it was so difficult to concentrate with waves of Joker's amusement lapping at him, threatening to pull him under. "I – I've got the situation under control. You go clean up your face, make sure you haven't been hurt too badly."

There was a tense second or so when it seemed as if Alfred might argue, but he must have decided his young friend knew what he was doing because he left with nothing more than a dubious look and a "Sir."

Now there was just the problem of the Joker to deal with.

"What did you want to speak with me about?"

When there was no reply, he turned to find that the clown had occupied his chair and was sat watching him. He was stretched out, scuffed boots swung up to rest on the coffee table and legs crossed at the ankle. On anyone else it would have been a vulnerable position, one that left them open to attack, but on Joker it was an expression of dominance. His posture said 'I have nothing to fear from you, you have nothing to hurt me with.' Scars smiled arrogantly so that his lips didn't have to bother, dark eyes turned up to the other man in a jarring contrast of submission.

'_Remember that night on the roof?'_

Unbidden, memories rose in Bruce's head of that terrible night in Arkham Asylum and once again he was standing on its roof with the Joker at his side. Only this time, the scene was all wrong. In this memory he was on his knees, begging the clown to join forces with him. Outwardly, he gave no indication of being either disturbed or angered by the scene. He kept his face impassive.

'_What about it?'_

'_You told me you saw a potential in me for good. You said that I needed a focus or I was going to burn myself out. And now I'm here to take you up on your offer.'_

'_What offer is that?'_

The clown's smile widened. _'I want to join you.'_


	9. Chapter 9

"I trust you're ready to tell me where the Batman is hiding."

Arrogance – the source of human kind's fallibility and, one day, its downfall. When blinded by a sense of your own immortality, you stopped looking out for the things that could prove you wrong. You became an easy target. Gordon wasn't aware that he had ever suffered from it; he knew only too well his limits and frailties.

Sitting back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest, the Commissioner eyed Janice Porter with defiant eyes. "No."

A faint blush of red on her cheeks betrayed the DA's anger, despite the cool exterior she fought to maintain. She hadn't been expecting a refusal, hadn't prepared herself for that possibility. She'd walked into Gordon's office with victory already won in her mind. Arrogance. It didn't know how to deal with forks in the track.

"Then you know what's going to happen." The steely glint of determination returned to her eyes and a cold smile twisted her mouth. She was back in control. The forked path had been taken, but the destination was still the same.

Surprisingly, Gordon matched the woman's smile. "Oh, I know what's going to happen, Porter. But do you?"

Prettily sculpted nostrils flared in anger. "This isn't the time for games, Gordon. I gave you a choice, Batman or your career. You've chosen to keep the fugitive's whereabouts a secret, leaving me no choice but to go to the Mayor and inform him of the sort of company you've been keeping. I wonder what else will come up in the inquiry? Christmas cards to Mister Freeze?"

He bore her anger with a quiet patience. Perhaps in time, he could even learn to pity her.

"I've resigned."

For the first time since stepping into the office, Janice seemed to notice the cardboard boxed packed with the Commissioner's possessions that littered the room. She glanced around with sharp movements of her head, taking in the walls stripped of various certificates and the gutted filing cabinets. The colour in her cheeks heightened, spreading like a rash across her cheekbones as her anger rose. This wasn't just a fork in the path, this was a road block. She should have seen it coming.

"What?" was all she was able to manage out of a mouth that threatened to gape uselessly.

His face set so that the new DA wouldn't be able to see how much he was enjoying her helpless expression, Gordon stood and gathered the closest box to his chest. All he wanted to do, now that he had turned Janice's blackmail back in her face, was to leave before he started thinking about what he had actually done. That was something he was hoping to keep from happening for as long as possible.

He walked past the woman without a word. As he neared the door and was starting to think that his exit wouldn't turn out quite as dignified as he'd planned, owing to the fact that he didn't have a hand free with which to open the door, he heard Janice turn to face him. Warily, he half turned back to her.

"You can't just resign," she told him, struggling with the subversion of her carefully laid plans.

If she hadn't been so blinded with the certainty of her own success, she would have seen this coming and prepared for it. Although it hadn't been a sure thing, Gordon had been pretty certain that this move would be an unexpected one to her. He'd been right. He'd been around longer than her, he knew his weaknesses, and he also saw every day the blinkers that people willingly wore in the name of ego defence. She was powerless over him.

"I'm sorry Porter," he said with a sad smile, "but I've never been one for long goodbyes. Look after Gotham for me, won't you?"

With that, he turned and found to his relief that he could get out of the door no-handed just fine by depressing the handle with his elbow and using his shoulder to push the door open. Luckily this movement didn't result in any of his boxed possessions spilling out onto the floor either, enabling him to leave with his dignity in tact as he had hoped. Best of all though, it seemed he had struck Janice Porter speechless.

Arrogance. One day it would cause mankind's downfall, but today it had started one woman on the road to hers.

It wasn't until he was outside, a cool breeze blowing in his face, that Jim Gordon allowed his shoulders to slump. For a moment it was all he could do to just stand there on the steps, clutching his stupid box to his chest with his stupid numb fingers. He couldn't believe what he'd just done. But what else was he supposed to do? She had left him no other choice.

There had been no farewell party, like he might have seen if he lived to retirement age. There was no cake, or nostalgic stories, or fond farewells with promises to keep in contact. He would not be giving a reluctant speech tonight and no one was going to raise a glass in toast to him. His leaving was one of quiet and discretion.

Standing there on the police headquarters' steps, Gordon couldn't remember having ever felt so alone before.

He looked up at the washed-out blue sky and wondered what Batman was doing.

* * *

Batman reached across the interior of the car, seized a handful of purple jacket and hauled his passenger firmly back into their seat.

"Stay inside," he cautioned in a rough growl, "We're conspicuous enough as it is."

After the destruction the Batmobile had been subjected to the night it had faced off with Joker's lorry as the clown tried to do away with Harvey, it had been necessary to build a new one from scratch. In a practical nod to Batman's demotion to 'Most Wanted', the new Batmobile was far less conspicuous than its predecessor, although no less heavily armoured. Despite the new covert look, Batman still took care to drive it only at certain times and even then he kept mainly to less frequented side roads.

"Why do you talk so funny?" His unlikely passenger, the Joker asked in extremes of amusement.

Batman chose not to reply. Instead, he kept his gaze locked on the road ahead. He had some thinking to do and he would much rather do it in silence. Not to mention he didn't exactly relish the thought of conversation with the clown. At least the psychic link had gone down again not long after Joker had made his 'proposition'. He didn't think he would have been able to cope with communication being forced upon him at that moment, especially not in the intimate way the psychic link allowed for.

What he really would have liked to do was drop Joker off somewhere – preferably Blackgate Prison – and go about his business alone, but ever since turning up at the penthouse, the criminal had stuck to him like glue. Besides, Batman reasoned, Joker was safer under his watchful eye than out roaming the streets alone. At least this way, he could be certain that no harm was coming to the people of Gotham because of Joker. He only wished that it could be achieved with the minimum of interaction between them.

Joker, however, had other ideas.

Watching the window he had until just a second ago been hanging his head out of, enjoying the breeze, wind smoothly closed at the touch of a button by Batman, he noisily smacked his lips. It had been done thoughtlessly, but noticing the very slight wince this produced in his travelling companion, he did it again. Even louder. Then he stretched leisurely, slipped down in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. His eyes turned almost obsessively towards Batman, studying the man's profile. He looked so different with that little mask on. Like a whole other person.

"You know," Joker spoke up in a conspiratorial tone, "there was a time when these cops and mobsters wouldn't dare to have crossed you." The words sounded vaguely familiar to his ears and he thought perhaps he had used a version of this little speech before, but that didn't matter. As long as Bats didn't know it was old material.

"Shut up."

Joker pursed his lips in a hurt pout. "It's no use pretending the problem doesn't exist. Your little friend Gordon used to do everything to allow you to continue playing your games; you could do whatever you wanted. Criminals were running scared. They didn't know _what_ to do with themselves when that bat-signal lit up the sky. You had the run of the place and now…" He glanced sidelong at the Dark Knight and giggled. "Now look at you. You don't use the shadows to inspire fear anymore; you use them to hide in."

"Isn't that your lead you told me about?" Batman cut in stoically. Coasting down a ramshackle street, he nodded to one of the houses further down. The front door had opened and a weaselly face had popped out and was surveying the oncoming vehicle with a look of dread.

Previous conversation forgotten, the clown leant forwards and squinted through the windshield. "That's him."

The man stepped out of the house and, leaving the front door swinging open behind him, made a break for it down the street.

Batman put the car up a gear before pressing down hard on the accelerator. When he glanced at his passenger, he almost could have been smiling, although it was almost certainly a trick of the light. "Then I suggest we go after him."


	10. Chapter 10

Lieutenant Cooper checked the briefcase for about the hundredth time since arriving, glanced around at his small team of men and then radioed out.

"Lekmann?" He asked through a sudden burst of static, eyes down as he consulted his watch. The minute hand seemed to drag. He started to reach down to tap the face, wondering if perhaps it wasn't working, but then the radio replied.

"Lieutenant?"

"Are your men in position?"

"Yes sir." The voice came through faintly at first and then strengthened.

"Very good. Don't move until I give my signal."

"Understood. Over and out, Lieutenant."

The radio crackled once and then silenced. Cooper looked at his watch once again and was vaguely surprised to see that time was still moving. There were only ten minutes to go before the rendezvous. His gaze flicked up and surveyed the abandoned warehouse. Everything seemed to be in position.

"Um, Lieutenant?"

That was police officer Davids, sounding as nervous as Cooper felt. At the nod from the other man he cleared his throat a few times and then continued. "When's the Commissioner getting here?"

Cooper had been dreading the asking of that question almost as much, or possibly more, than he had been dreading the scheduled rendezvous. Despite having agonised over it for hours, he still wasn't sure what to answer, so he just opened his mouth and waited to see what was going to come out.

"The Commissioner won't be coming, Davids." That came out sounding far more bitter than he had intended. He modified his tone. "There's been a slight change of plans. Nothing that will affect us tonight," he tacked on hurriedly, seeing the agonised look on his officer's face.

"But Mister Freeze specifically requested the money be handed over by the Commissioner."

"I _know_ what the demands were, Davids!" Lieutenant Cooper barked, his already severely frayed nerves threatening to snap. He shouldn't have to deal with this. Temper not quelled by the way his officer shrank back from him, he thoughtlessly hissed "But there _is_ no Commissioner to hand the money over."

The sudden, almost tangible silence that descended on his team following his words was enough to bring Cooper back to his senses, although once he had he sincerely wished that he could take permanent leave of them. The acoustics of the warehouse meant that his shouted words were echoed back to him, sounding like the toll of a funeral bell. The word repeating itself was horribly relevant.

"_Over_ … _over_ … _over_ …"

He looked around at the shocked, uncertain faces of his officers and wondered what effect this blow to morale would have on their performance tonight. They couldn't afford to be making mistakes, not when there was so much riding on this. He felt a sudden rush of anger at the Commissioner – or rather, ex-Commissioner – for running off and leaving him to cope with this alone. It just wasn't fair.

Forcefully pushing his personal feelings aside, Cooper attempted to soothe the nerves of his team. Taking care to make eye contact with each of them in turn, he brusquely cleared his throat and began "I was hoping to put this off until later, but-"

He was interrupted by the warehouse doors slamming open. As one, Cooper and his men turned towards the doorway to find Mister Freeze silhouetted in its maw.

Mister Freeze was much larger than he had appeared in his recording, his height more imposing and his shoulders broader. What the taped message had also failed to truly account for was his eerie otherworldliness. The face behind the glass of his futuristic helmet was impassive, completely still, the expression made even more unreadable by the frosty condensation that seemed to mar it from the inside. However, the most unsettling thing about his appearance was the huge gun strapped to one of his forearms.

The gun was as anachronistically futuristic as his spaceman costume. Taking up the entire length of his forearm, it was bulky but curvaceous like some kind of water pistol. Tubing ran from it to conjoin with a large pack strapped to the criminal's back, from which thin tendrils of dry ice rose and drifted sinuously through the air around Freeze's head.

As Cooper watched, struck immobile by the strangeness of it all, Freeze began walking fowards. The criminal's personalised suit and gun must have been heavy, because he moved with an awkwardly lurching, robotic gait. Left foot, pause, right foot, pause.

"Mister…" The Lieutenant's voice came out as nothing more than a dry squeak, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "Mister Freeze, we have the money you requested."

Freeze made no answer, he simply kept lurching towards them. Cooper ran his tongue nervously across parched lips and glanced back at the men flanking him. Although they'd been given no order to do so, the tenseness of the situation had them reaching for their weapons. He would have done the same but, although the material of the criminal's suit looked flimsy enough, he had the idea that bullets would have no effect on it.

He thought about calling in the waiting back up and wished he could call on Batman instead. Even if the vigilante had turned against the police, freaks like this were still his area of expertise. Normal people shouldn't be expected to deal with them. But he knew there would be no help from the Batman. They were on their own.

His thoughts were interrupted by Freeze suddenly pitching forwards, no more than a few yards away.

Guns were automatically drawn including Cooper's, despite his misgivings about its effectiveness, but it seemed there was no need for weapons. As if he had fainted, Freeze lay face down on the floor, unmoving. The Lieutenant approached cautiously and when it seemed the criminal was indeed out cold – no pun intended – he went down on one knee and turned the body over onto its back.

It was much lighter than he had expected. Certainly not heavy enough to account for the man's lurching gait or suggest that the gun on his arm was anything more than a prop. It didn't make any sense.

"What's going on, sir?" Davids asked hesitantly.

"I'm not quite sure…" The Lieutenant murmured. On a sudden impulse he made a motion with one arm, ordering his men to "Get back, all of you," before reaching down to the helmet over Freeze's head. Despite the general air of disapproval he could feel radiating from his men, his thumbs found the clasps attaching the helmet to the metal collar of the suit and unlocked them. Gently he lifted the glass construct free and then stared in surprise at the revealed face.

It wasn't Mister Freeze at all. Not the one who had recorded the demands anyway. Whereas the face in the recording had been strong-featured with a square jaw and well-defined cheekbones, almost handsome, this face was thin and weasel-like. The most striking difference however, was that the man this face belonged to was dead. He looked as though he might have been frozen to death, because his lips and skin were tinged an unhealthy blue and his staring eyes were frosted over. He must have frozen to death inside the suit.

Cooper stared at the corpse, unable to comprehend what it meant. The closer he studied it, the more he realised that the weaselly face was known to him. It was one of the force's favoured squealers, a one Randall Christchurch. A lowlife scum who spread his loyalty about like manure, latching onto whatever criminal element seemed the most powerful and then blurting out everything he knew about them at the first sign of personal injury. Although now it looked like old Randall had squealed his last.

Realisation dawned on Lieutenant Cooper then like a bloody sunrise. Leaving the corpse where it lay, he stood and backed away from it shouting "It's a trap! Everybody, draw your weapons, it's a trap!"


	11. Chapter 11

Freeze couldn't believe they'd fallen for it. American policemen were even stupider than he'd expected. They'd truly thought that pathetic decoy was him and with their attention distracted it would be so easy to burst in and dispose of them, just as easily as he and the remainder of his _loyal_ henchmen had been able to eradicate the poorly concealed back up. It was all too easy.

Hearing the Lieutenant cry out his pitiful warning, Freeze nodded to his henchmen and they battered down a flimsy section of the warehouse's wall, pouring in. Freeze strode in behind them, readying the gun on his forearm. The weapon looked exactly like the one worn by his unfortunate double with the one exception that this one actually worked.

Panicked gunshots rang out, echoing crazily and felling at least two of his henchmen in an explosion of blood. Freeze paid their loss no mind, the lives of his hired help meant nothing to him. Only one life did, but that had been taken from him. He continued purposefully towards the Lieutenant, who stood cowering by a rickety table with the suitcase of money on its surface, gun jittering uselessly in his shaking hands. Freeze felt a certain clinical disgust for the man's display of cowardice.

Glancing around, the movements of his head jerky due to the helmet he wore, Freeze lifted a hand for silence. Somewhat surprisingly, he was obeyed. Weapons were lowered and eyes turned towards him. An imperial motion of his fingers saw his surviving employees coming forwards and swiftly divesting the policemen of their weapons before holding them at gunpoint. Only Lieutenant Cooper was left untouched. The understanding was that he belonged to Freeze.

"I do not see your Police Commissioner Gordon anywhere," he addressed the frightened man. "Is he perhaps suffering from cold feet?"

One of the henchmen sniggered. It was an unpleasant, growling sound.

"The – the Commissioner isn't able to make it tonight." Cooper managed, his mind dulled with fear.

"That disappoints me Lieutenant, and I am not a man who takes disappointment lightly. Let's hope the rest of the evening goes according to my arrangements, shall we? I would hate for anything else to be amiss."

He reached out with one hand and snapped open the briefcase, opening it. On first glance it appeared that it was full of the money he had demanded, but he knew better. Very slowly, very deliberately, Freeze picked up a thick wad of the notes and turned it over. The back was blank, the money false.

Cold eyes locked with Cooper's. "Why is this money fake? Has someone perhaps frozen your bank account?"

This was the moment Cooper had arranged to call in the policemen waiting outside. They had planned this to be their moment of victory. Without taking his eyes from the other man's, the Lieutenant reached for his radio and brought it to his mouth, speaking the signal into it. There was nothing but static from the other end. Panic rising up inside him like bile, he tried again. Still nothing.

"Your men will not be coming." Freeze told him emotionlessly. "They are… indisposed. I think it is time you realised, Lieutenant, exactly who you are dealing with. Perhaps them you will treat me with the respect I deserve."

So saying, he hefted the gun on his arm and aimed it at one of the policemen. Depressing a lever in his hand sent a high pressure jet of liquid nitrogen stored in the pack on his back rushing from the muzzle of the gun towards the hapless man. It hit him full force in the chest, the cold instantly freezing his heart to a halt. He was dead of shock within seconds.

"Davids!" The Lieutenant roared in grief, making to go to the body until he felt the muzzle of the strange ice gun pressing against his temple.

He would have died then, had it not been for the sudden roar of an approaching vehicle. Weapon still pressed to the man's head, Freeze turned to the source of the noise in time to see a sleek, black armoured car race in through the open doors of the warehouse. With a shout, he ordered his henchmen to open fire on it, but it continued through the hail of bullets unimpeded before screeching to an abrupt halt. There was only one person Mister Freeze knew of who drove a car like that. A cold smile twisted his face.

A moment of unbearable stillness hung in the air before the vehicle's front doors flew up like spreading wings and the Batman erupted out like a vengeful demon.

Two henchmen immediately put their captives out of commission with a swift kick to the abdomen then rushed the Dark Knight. His movements almost graceful, he whipped a Batarang towards one that tangled around his legs and took him down. Continuing with the momentum, he turned to face the other man, bringing his hand down on the side of the henchman's neck to fell him with ruthless efficiency. Teeth bared in a silent growl, he advanced, his movements assured and powerful.

Freeze hung back, fascinated by the opponent he'd known he must face if he took on Gotham. He hadn't expected to be this impressed, despite some of the things he had heard about the now-disgraced Bat, but he found himself captivated by the other's economy of movement and clinical efficiency. Two things he greatly admired.

"Get out! Move!" Batman roared at the frozen policemen. With quick movements of his wrist, a Batarang appeared in each hand like a magic trick and then struck two more goons in the back of the neck, knocking them unconscious and leaving the policemen they had been guarding free to run.

Even though orders were to arrest the wanted criminal Batman on first sight, the men made gratefully for the door. All except one, who, face clouded with fear and anger, snatched up his gun from where it had been thrown on the floor and levelled it at the exposed part of Batman's face.

Engaged in a fight with another of Freeze's men, the Dark Knight was unaware of the danger he was in. But turning to check that all his men were out safely, Cooper saw. He knew in that moment he could let no harm come to the vigilante. Despite the people they said Batman had killed, the things he had done, he had still turned up to help them. Batman was on their side. He shouted out and started to run towards the officer, but something beat him to it. Something that exploded from the gut of the Batmobile in a purple blur, screaming laughter like a banshee.

Cooper watched in horror as the Joker tackled his officer, whooping battle cries of hilarity. The bullet meant for Batman was shot harmlessly up at the high ceiling, unheeded. Batman was working with the Joker, an insane terrorist. He wasn't here to help them at all, he was here to kill them.

His mind threatening to break under the weight of the betrayal, Lieutenant Cooper turned and ran.

Getting rid of the last of Freeze's men with a well-placed fist to the jaw, Batman became aware of barking laughter. Turning, he saw the Joker viciously kicking someone down on the ground and mentally cursed. He should have known the clown wouldn't have been able to remain within the Batmobile when there was the promise of violence outside. He was about to call out when movement distracted him. It was Freeze, trying to escape.

"Joker, he's getting away!" The bat-eared crime-fighter shouted out, immediately giving chase. He didn't care if the other man followed or not, just hoped it would distract him enough so that whoever was on the floor wouldn't receive a fatal beating. Something would have to be done about Joker's violent impulses, Batman refused to have blood on his hands because of that clown, but now wasn't the time to be thinking about it – for a guy wearing that much heavy equipment, Freeze was certainly light on his feet and it was starting to look like he might make it out unimpeded.

Taking careful aim, Batman disengaged the spikes embedded in his gauntlets. They shot through the air to thunk into the concrete floor around the fleeing criminal's feet, effectively stopping him in his tracks. Batman's aim had been perfect, a couple of inches closer and he would have crippled Freeze. Still running, he watched the domed helmet look down and then turn towards him. The pause gave him enough time to close the gap between them.

"Give it up Freeze, you're finished."

A humourless smile passed across the German's face. "Oh no Batman, I think you'll find I'm only just beginning."

Batman suddenly found the freeze gun being levelled at his face.

Time seemed to slow, to break down into fragmented sights and sounds. He heard the hiss of pressure being released, as freezing liquid nitrogen began rushing through tubing and valves towards the weapon. He stumbled ever so slightly as someone brushed past him, moving as though through thick layers of sticky cotton candy.

Then his entire attention was caught by a flash of steel in a purple gloved fist and everything sped up beyond his control.

"No!" He shouted, making a grab for the Joker, but the clown was too fast, ducking beneath his hands.

Uttering a bestial snarl, Joker slashed upwards with his knife, opening up the front of Mister Freeze's suit. The fabric came apart with a synthetic-sounding rip, accompanied by the chunky pop of plastic tubing being cut through. Instead of blood, ice-cold gas came hissing through the fissures and into the faces of Batman and Joker.

Batman staggered back, instinctively lifting an arm to defend himself, but it was too late. The gas settled on his eyes, condensing into little ice fragments that effectively glued them shut. The skin around his blinded eyes and the exposed half of his face burned agonisingly with the cold. He fell to his knees, fighting desperately to keep the forming ice from blocking up his nose and mouth, suffocating him.

Even through his struggles, he could hear Freeze getting away and then his body succumbed to the shock of the cold and he knew no more.


	12. Chapter 12

He hardly felt the cold anymore.

There were still days when the constant torment he was putting his body through would suddenly become too much for his system and for a few hours he would be able to do nothing but sit and shiver whilst his body threatened to give up on him. But days like that were becoming less and less frequent. Besides, the cold he suffered was nothing compared with what his wife had to endure endless day after endless day. No, he hardly ever felt the cold anymore. He never felt anything much.

"Who did this to you?" Mister Freeze quietly asked the man whose bedside he sat by. The man made no reply, which made perfect sense seeing as he was deep in the grip of a coma he was never expected to wake from.

It had been no easy task, locating his old medical professor Doctor Hugo Strange. Gotham's administration and information system seemed to be grounded in sheer chaos. But Freeze had finally learnt about his mentor's mysterious coma through an unexpected ally and been able to track him here to the recently rebuilt Gotham General. He had come, following his humiliating defeat at Batman's hands, hoping to ask a favour and had found nothing but silence. He could almost feel emotions creeping back into his being, so he forcefully pushed them away. There was no place for emotions in a world such as this, the only way to survive it was to become as cold as it was.

However, he did permit himself to unclasp his helmet and place it quietly down on the floor beside him. Having done so, he rested his chin on his balled fists and stared numbly at the patient.

Months spent lifelessly in a hospital bed were starting to take their physical toll on Strange. His eyes had sunken back into bruised-looking flesh, as if it was only the size of his brain that had kept them in place, and now that that great organ was atrophying, they were collapsing back in on themselves. It wasn't only his brain that was slowly degrading either, weeks of being fed by nothing but an IV drip had left his formerly rotund girth pitifully gaunt. Although somehow his flesh also seemed puffy and bloated, his pallid white skin giving him something of a maggot's look.

Unable to look at the wreck of the man anymore, Freeze put his head in his hands. "Why? Why has this happened? You were mine and Nora's last hope, Hugo." Lifting his head, grief breaking through on a face that had become little more than a mask, he imploringly took one of the Doctor's hands into both of his. "You are the only one who knows how to save her. I can't afford to keep her cryogenically frozen for much longer, or to keep hiring the help that keeps her barely alive as it is. This Gotham of yours, it is not easy pickings as I was led to believe, I still don't have the money I need. But what use is money anyway without your expertise?"

Hugo Strange said nothing.

Ashamed of showing his emotions whilst his beloved Nora must remain so cold and lifeless, Freeze turned resolutely to look out of the window as he gathered his composure.

The thought of the climb that faced him when he chose to exit the hospital made him feel incredibly weary. Because he had made his face known on those taped demands and because a man walking around in his particular attire was likely to attract all the wrong kinds of attention, especially here in Gotham, his hospital visit had to be achieved by scaling the wall and then climbing in through the window. No mean feat, but he had managed it. He would overcome any hardship if it was for Nora's sake.

The climb could have been made much easier if he'd just discarded the bulky suit that powered his freeze gun, but he had vowed never to take it off. He felt that if he did, he would surely die. The permanent chill of the suit, due to the liquid nitrogen being pumped around it to feed his weaponry, was his only link to his wife. Whilst she was encased in ice, waiting for a cure to be found for her fatal disease, he must surround himself with the cold, embracing it like he could no longer embrace her.

Anger coursed through him at this final frustration, this immense block in the road to his happy ending, and it warmed him like nothing else could. "Once again you set up challenges that I do not know how to overcome, Hugo! And now, when I am in most need of your guidance you mock me with your silence. I don't know what else to do… I don't…"

Worn out by the first emotions he had allowed himself in years, ever since Nora had been diagnosed and he'd known there was nothing he could do for his wife, he sank down onto his knees at the Doctor's bedside. Head buried in his hands, he slipped back into his native German tongue to murmur the incoherent platitudes of a desperate, heartbroken man.

For the first time since his wife had been diagnosed with the disease that would kill her, Freeze allowed himself to grieve.

A sharp gasp reached him through his haze of mourning, and he looked up to see a nurse standing shocked in the doorway, staring at him. His emotions deserted him in a rush as if they had never been there, leaving him clinically detached and in control of himself once again. The nurse would recover soon and start screaming for help. He couldn't let that happen.

Swiftly, whilst the woman was still too shocked to react, he retrieved his helmet and put it on, his arm continuing in one smooth motion to aim his freeze gun straight at her heart. His fist closed around the lever in his hand, sending a deadly arc of ice towards the nurse. Her body fell to the floor without a sound. Her heart as dead and cold as his.

Content that the alarm would not be raised for a while yet, Mister Freeze swung himself out of the hospital window and into the anonymous dark outside.

* * *

"How long will he be staying here for, sir?" Alfred hissed to Bruce in an undertone.

They were standing huddled together like secret conspirators in the doorway of the penthouse's sitting room, peering in at its sole occupant. The occupant, more commonly known by the alias Joker, was stretched out across the couch with that morning's newspaper. Disconcerting giggles and murmurs could be heard above the rustling of the broadsheet's pages.

Bruce drew back into the protection of the doorway and admitted "I don't know."

"Then please let me phone the police, Master Bruce. They'll get rid of him."

Batman's daytime ego sighed. He glanced at Alfred's concerned face, guiltily taking in the bruise that had been bestowed by Joker the night of his arrival. It was healing well, but that did nothing to salve either his feelings or Alfred's.

"No, you know we can't complicate things any further. Besides, he said he wanted to help."

Of course, Bruce had believed that no more than he would have believed someone telling him on good authority that they had seen a pig take wing. He trusted in it even less after having to take care of that police officer Joker had attacked the night before. But still, there was something that kept him from calling off the arrangement altogether. Perhaps it was only that he had shared the Joker's mind once, giving him a twisted sense of kinship with the man, or perhaps there was more to it than that, he couldn't be sure. All he could be sure of was that Joker was genuine about wanting to help him take down Mister Freeze.

"Begging your pardon sir," lowering his voice even further so that the clown wouldn't be able to hear, Alfred voiced Bruce's own doubts, "But I don't believe that for a second and neither should you."

They were interrupted by a voice suddenly calling out. "When are you two _housewives_ going to stop _gossiping_ there in the doorway? I ordered breakfast half an hour ago."

Bruce caught the flinch that he was sure Alfred would deny if mentioned, and with a fresh stab of guilt reached out to take the tray his friend was carrying. He thought the action especially wise considering the murderous look on the man's face, flinch or no flinch.

"Let me take it," he murmured. The butler didn't argue.

Leaving the other man in the doorway, he walked coolly in. The tray was slid onto the coffee table before he casually pushed Joker's feet to the floor so that he could occupy the couch space beside him. The theory was the same one that governed encounters with dangerous animals – don't let them see your fear and let them know who's in charge.

There was a crackle as the newspaper was lowered, and the clown ran a dismissive eye over the breakfast tray. He lunged suddenly for the tall glass of orange juice and downed it in large gulps as if he hadn't taken nourishment in a long while. A small bead of escaped liquid tracked an orange line down his painted chin.

Bruce looked away, feeling mildly disgusted. To take his mind off of the feeling he took the paper from Joker's lap and opened it to the page he had been on. At first he couldn't make out what the article was about, so covered was it in thick, heavy pen lines. An army of scribbled 'HA's marched drunkenly across the page, over the headline, all semblance of order lost in their anarchic scrawl. Then a word heavily ringed in blue pen caught his eye and his heart sank. Cropping up haphazardly throughout the article, he noticed more and more of the circles, each one enclosing the same word: Joker.

There was only one thing this news story could be about and it was going to make his job even more difficult. A cluster of mockingly drawn hearts, the word 'Batman' nestled amongst them only confirmed his suspicions. The policemen who'd seen him with Joker had gone to the newspapers about it, blackening Batman's already soiled name. But that was okay, you didn't need to be _liked_ to save a city. Did you?

He looked up to find Joker watching him with an intense half-smile and not for the first time was made to think of hero worship that has become perverted, turned homicidal. There was a zealous fervour in the clown's eyes that made them seem to burn from within.

"They think you've sided with me," the scarred man smirked like he was telling the joke of the century. "They know what you are now."

Bruce said nothing. What was there to say? If he said something then it might lead to accepting the idea that maybe on the inside he really was as ugly as the man sat beside him. If he spoke, it might be admitting that he wasn't one of the brave men walking the path of the straight and narrow, but a twisted outsider lurking on the edges of reason. After all, he was working with a murderer. Such thoughts were unacceptable; he had to believe that he was better than men like the Joker, so he said nothing.

In the strained silence his attention was caught by a news story unmarred by Joker's frantic doodlings. This one sent his heart racing instead of sinking. It told of the unexplained death of a Gotham General nurse, found in the doorway of a patient's room. Tentative suggestions had been made that the woman had died of shock, although what could have caused her heart to freeze up so suddenly was a mystery. Even stranger were the marks akin to frostbite found on her chest, whilst the rest of her body was unmarked. Unfortunately, the patient she'd been attending could not serve as a witness, because he was deep in a coma.

Bruce's hands tightened around the paper, turning his knuckles white. He had a pretty good idea of what had stopped that poor young woman's heart – a sudden burst of liquid nitrogen to the chest, freezing the blood in her veins. Mister Freeze had been at the hospital last night. And almost as certainly as he knew that, he also knew that the coma patient mentioned was Hugo Strange. He wasn't sure how it was he could be so certain, but he was all the same.

Mister Freeze had been paying a night time visit to Doctor Hugo Strange… but to what purpose? Or was Bruce simply clutching at straws and this was just coincidence? Had Freeze been after the nurse, or was she someone who just got in the way? There was only one way to find out the answers.

"Make up off, Joker." Standing, he folded the newspaper and let it drop to the surface of the coffee table alongside the breakfast tray. "If you're serious about helping me take down Mister Freeze, then we've got some _in cognito _investigative work to do."

But by the time they got to the hospital, Doctor Strange had already gone missing.


	13. Chapter 13

Outside, the streets were in near anarchy. There was a sense of tension, of the waiting for something to snap, in the air as small groups of people marched and chanted. They were few, these marchers and chanters, but their numbers were apt to swell. Thickening the dangerous atmosphere was the smell of smoke as people hoisted effigies of the Batman and set them alight as fast as the police assigned to the duty could put them out. It was all the police could do to contain the situation, and with every minute that passed it seemed more likely that the floodgates would open and they would be plunged into a full-scale riot.

Inside, it was quiet and still.

The panic of the streets had yet to reach the Gotham Public Library where Jim Gordon sat at one of the computers. The silence of the library was almost preternatural and every tap of the computer keys seemed a thunderclap, but Gordon didn't let that deter him. He had work to do.

Just because Gordon no longer bore the title of Police Commissioner, it didn't mean that his long accumulated knowledge and honed observational skills had disappeared right along with it. He'd known from the first word of Janice's threatening proposition that it wasn't the first time the woman had resorted to such underhand tricks in order to feed her ambition. She'd been too sure of herself, too centred for it to have been her first time. Now, hunched in front of a public library computer with a riot that he no longer had the authority to control threatening to break outside, he was looking for anything that might allow him to get the upper hand on Ms. Porter.

And he thought he might have found something.

"What's this?" He murmured to himself, absentmindedly pushing his glasses further up his nose as he leant into the screen. The personal financial records of the DA's office glowed softly in front of him, but what had caught his eye was one glaring discrepancy. There were probably a few more to be found if he cared to take a closer look, but this one could possibly be what he needed to expose Janice Porter for what she really was.

His hand was hovering over the mouse, about to highlight his find, when a rough voice spoke behind him, making him jump.

"Doing a little homework, Commissioner?"

Guiltily, although he told himself that he had no reason to feel so, he turned to face the Batman. He was thankful that he had elected to sit down a thin corridor of computers that branched off from the main body of the library, deserted save for himself and his surprise visitor. It was somewhat strange to be talking to the fugitive after having counselled himself on the all-too-likely prospect that now as an ordinary citizen, he would never see the Bat again.

But then the memory of that morning's headline and the bewildered despair it brought returned to him. He snatched up the newspaper tucked in beside the computer screen and waved it at Batman, like a teacher scolding an unruly pupil with irrefutable evidence of their misbehaviour. "Is it true what they said? That you're working with that… that… _animal_?" His voice rose, cracking hoarsely on the last word.

His anger was abated by a librarian suddenly popping into the little computer alcove, a frown on her face. Gordon tensed, waiting for her scream when she saw the bat-eared shadow lurking behind him, but all she did was put a finger to her lips in the age-old sign language of 'no talking in the library'.

Once she had moved on, he turned around fully expecting to find the Batman gone as neatly as a conjuror's trick and was proved wrong again. The other man still stood exactly where he had been before, inscrutable, unruffled. If Gordon didn't know better, if he had been the kind of man to believe in such things, he would have attributed the Dark Knight with supernatural powers. But he knew beneath the armour and the cowl, Batman was a man just like the rest of them.

"That's not what I came here to discuss with you," Batman answered as if there had been no interruption, which meant that he _was_ working with the Joker and either felt fully justified in his reasons for doing so, or had no idea at all of his reasons and didn't want Gordon to know that. The resigned Commissioner chose the first option, if only for his own peace of mind.

"There's a man, a coma patient who went missing from his room in Gotham General this morning. Do you know anything about it?"

Gordon glanced sharply up at the other man, a faint frown visible on his face. He felt mildly affronted by the question, as if Batman had just deliberately rubbed a handful of stinging salt into a still open wound. Surely the Dark Knight knew that Gordon had resigned, that he was no longer in the position to know anything of any importance.

But, wasn't salt also renowned for its healing properties? He glanced back at the computer, silently looking at the information he had attained. True, he was no longer in an official position, but he was still able gather valuable information. The question hadn't been a taunt, Gordon realised it was the fugitive Bat's way of telling him that he still trusted in him, whether he was the Commissioner or not.

"No, but I'll see what I can find out," he replied quietly, hoping that his voice wouldn't betray the emotion he felt.

Evidently his voice didn't let him down, and the understanding between the two men was as implicit as it had ever been, for without any further discussion the Batman was leaning over him, one gauntleted hand on the desk, the other tapping the screen where the cursor waited patiently for its next task. "What has the new DA done to deserve your scrutiny, Commissioner?"

Gordon swallowed heavily. An open wound can only take so much punishment, even if the pain is well-meant. "Don't call me that. I'm not-"

"I know."

The silence that hung for a moment between them was like a priest's confessional box, and Gordon decided that despite his misgivings he would share his suspicions with the other man.

"See that money spent on travel?" He asked, indicating a column on the screen. "She hasn't left Gotham since she came to office. Either the travel is a cover-up for something she doesn't want anybody knowing about, or she's been paying for somebody else's holidays."

Understandably, this seemed to interest Batman. He started to say "Have you found anything to suggest…" but was cut off by a sudden grunt of pain. Staggering back a little, his teeth gritted, he pressed one hand to the side of his head. A choked snarl and he was down on his knees, clutching at his skull as if he were afraid it would break in two.

Gordon stood up so fast that the chair he'd been sitting on toppled to the floor. But from there he didn't know what to do. All he could do was hover anxiously by the fallen man, either until he could be of help or until the crisis had passed and his help was no longer needed.

* * *

In a rush, Batman found himself both in Joker's head and his own, both inside the library and outside on the street and the pain was excruciating, like he was being ripped apart. It was one of the most intense psychic unions he had experienced since this whole crazy nightmare began.

He could feel the dangerous restlessness that was building up inside Joker, and the resentment at being told to sit quietly and wait in the Batmobile like some kind of pet dog, or a child. He could hear people approaching and, moving as one with the other man, he leant over to look at the wing mirror and saw one of the anti-Batman mobs marching past. From the way they held themselves it was obvious that they were highly strung, wound up and looking for some heads to kick in.

He tried to tell Joker to stay in the Batmobile, just stay in the Batmobile or the whole deal was off and it was back to Arkham with him, but the clown's sick mind had already begun to infect his own. He felt excited, if not a little aroused, at the anticipation of the violence the mob would bring. Gotham beckoned him with the crooked finger of chaos and he had no choice but to obey her summons.

One mind, one body, one consciousness, the Batman-Joker got out of the Batmobile with the lithe grace reserved for the organic killing machines of this world and followed after the crowd, melting in amongst them.

Although the mob were too stoked up to notice the newcomer in their midst, they all felt the influence of his unwelcome presence. An unnatural union of minds, the offspring of madness, the Batman-Joker radiated waves of horror and disorientation. He revelled in the confusion and panic this caused to swell through the amassed ranks, heightening the possibility of violence. He wound the situation up further, catcalling taunts and threats against the fugitive vigilante, inciting them to riot. As their frenzy was stoked to a crescendo, he snatched a sturdy-looking sign from a woman standing beside him and threw it as hard as he could into a glass shop front.

Windows shattered and all hell broke loose. Reduced to nothing more than animals, the crowd surged forwards with the intent of looting the shop and the Batman-Joker was swept along with them. There were police running in from one side, and the crowd were prepared to fight them and he couldn't help but laugh because this was the way life was supposed to be. His own excitement heightened beyond endurance, he began to lash out at the surge of people around him, his hands like living weapons of flesh and bone.

And then things started to get really confusing.

The Batman-Joker suddenly became aware of the strangest notion. The notion that none of this was real, it was all part of some elaborate dream. In the midst of the chaos, he became still and looked up at the sky. He was not surprised to see there was a great rent running through it like a torn seam and through it he could look out at the real, waking world. Through that hole he could see blurry faces peering down at him and shouting things in words that sounded familiar but he couldn't understand. Behind those frightening, desperate voices was a steady rumble like approaching thunder and running through it all was the _beep_, _beep_, _beep_ of his own monitored heart beat.

Then everything went black.

* * *

"Batman? Batman, can you hear me?"

Gordon was immensely relieved to see the Dark Knight's eyes flutter unsteadily open in the shadows of his cowl. It had been a shock to see the vigilante suddenly keel over in a dead faint. If the man had needed medical attention, he surely would have ended up in custody and Gordon had enough Judas complexes to cope with without adding that one to the list again. As it stood, it was nothing short of a miracle that the librarian hadn't popped back to see what all the forbidden noise was about.

He backed off and then stood as Batman slowly sat up, automatically checking his mask to make sure that it was still in place.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Commissioner." Grabbing the edge of the table, the Bat pulled himself to his feet. His lips were parted in silent, panting breaths, but apart from that he seemed to have recovered already. "It was just a… a headache."

Gordon opened his mouth to disagree, but decided against it. Instead, he bent down to right the fallen chair, saying "At least sit down for a while. I could get you some water…" But by the time he had straightened up again, Batman was gone.


	14. Chapter 14

Joker returned to consciousness only to find himself being dragged along backwards by old Batsy, who had hold of the back of his coat in a vice-like grip. Still pleasantly dazed from the psychic union and subsequent lack of consciousness, he pedalled his heels in a half-hearted attempt to halt the other man. As he did, he watched the madness he was being forced to leave behind.

The police, visors on their riot helmets pulled down and grotesque gas masks hanging from their faces, had loosed tear gas into the midst of the frenzied mob. Although this didn't seem to have done much to quell the rioters, some of whom looked as though they had succumbed to the gravity of madness, the police were still managing to pick them off in ones and twos, hauling them away to waiting vans. No doubt the situation would be under control soon. What a shame.

He turned slightly in Batman's grip, intending to tell the man that if it wasn't for that riot they'd started keeping the policemen's hands full, then they wouldn't have been able to walk away undisturbed like they were now, but found himself being dumped unceremoniously onto the passenger seat of the Batmobile. The forceful slam of the door told him that Batman was _very_ angry.

Face pressed against the seat where he had fallen, the clown prince of crime licked his scars and chuckled dryly. His mind took him back to that night in the interrogation room, his first face-to-face meeting with Batsy and the unrestrained aggression of the crime-fighter. Aggression that the Joker had personally coaxed out and nearly pushed over the edge. It had been such a rush of power, every blow he'd received affirming that it was he who was in control, not the Batman. He wondered if the crime-fighter were that angry now, if perhaps he could make him lose control again and spat out more laughter.

Hearing the driver's door open, Joker scrambled clumsily into a sitting position. In the ensuing silence, the Batmobile's engine growled into life and then was left to idle. He glanced at the Batman's stern profile and all of a sudden anger flared up within him like a white hot spark. The Bat was putting him in the position of a child again, taking on the role of a scolding parent, making his offspring squirm at the prospect of reprimand. Did Batman still not understand? After everything, why was he still refusing Joker the respect he deserved, the equality?

"I ought to take you back to Arkham." His gravelly voice, thick with anger, was hardly distinguishable from the vehicle's motor. "What did you think you were doing? Innocent people could have been hurt. If this arrangement is going to work, then you'll have to learn to co operate with me and play by my rules."

The clown grinned, his resentment already forgotten. "Oh Batsy, you're not going to take me back to Arkham. You _need_ me."

And then he grinned more because the silence meant that Batman knew he was right.

The engine caught and the Batmobile was easing out of the alleyway it had been parked in. Joker leant his chin on his palm and watched his city roll smoothly past the window. Because it was _his_ city. Mister Freeze had never stood a chance of taking it to begin with, but now that Joker had the Bat on his side, he would be able to teach Freeze a lesson for even _thinking_ he could possibly have stood a chance. Then he'd teach Gotham a lesson for thinking, even for a moment, that it could have belonged to anyone other than him.

Slowly, he became aware that Batman was talking to him and listened in, although he kept his gaze fixed out of the window.

"…Some of the plane tickets from a town in Germany famous for its psychological research centre. It's too close to be a coincidence. I think we'll find out more at Porter's."

"Not thinking of breaking and entering, are we Batsy?" Joker asked, thoughtfully splaying the fingertips of one hand across the window, as if he could take hold of the scenery rushing past, just reach out and take it. "Not very, uh, _ethical_, is it? Not breaking into the house of a pretty lady like Janice, all alone there, completely at your mercy." He clicked his tongue on the _t_'s, making them into something vulgar. "Oh, but you must have felt so lonely since Rachel… hm… since Rachel _took_ _off_."

He waited with twisting anticipation for the Bat's resolve to break. It would be the head first he thought, Batman would never learn, he would just grab ahold of Joker by the hair and smash his face against the window. The clown scrunched his eyes up, awaiting impact, but it never came. Instead, the Batmobile seemed to be slowing to a halt. He opened one eye and confirmed this impression. So the Bat hadn't broken. But that was okay, there would be plenty of other opportunities.

"I didn't ask for you to join me, Joker."

"You did." He considered a moment and then repeated more forcefully "_You did_," but no one answered because he was alone in the vehicle. He opened the door and hurried after the other man.

Batman glanced to the side as Joker came up to him, then turned his attention back to the lock he was expertly picking on Janice Porter's ground floor window. "I work best on my own," he concluded in something that was almost a threat but not quite, issuing a little grunt as he tried to force the window open from the outside. It wouldn't give, even with the lock opened.

"You know what your problem is?" Slipping a knife out of his pocket, Joker inserted its point beneath where the window met the sill and jimmied it back and forth. "You're scared to share anything with anyone in case they undermine your delusion that you're this almighty, infallible being." The knife pocketed once again, he leant his not inconsiderable strength to Batman's and together they were able to lift the window. "You're afraid of being human."

"And you're inhuman, nothing's going to change that," Batman rumbled irritably, going down on one knee so that he could give Joker a boost up through the window. Moving his head sharply to avoid a flailing boot as the other man scrambled out of sight, he added "The sooner we find out what's happened to Strange and sort out this psychic link mess, the better." A small thump from inside the house announced Joker's safe arrival and Batman easily swung himself up into the building.

In the light of a dying afternoon, the two men stood together and surveyed Janice Porter's study. It was a tidy affair, tastefully decorated, the obvious money that had been put into it speaking volumes about her ruthless ambition and determination. Just like in a lawyer's office, a large bookcase dominated one corner of the room, heaving with leather-bound books of law that looked as though they had never been touched, except by the hands of a maid when she remembered to dust them. On a side table sat a telephone, its red light winking on and off to announce one new message, whilst on a large mahogany desk covered with organised clutter, a computer peacefully slumbered.

Batman made immediately for this piece of modern technology, taking command of a handsome leather office chair as he switched it on. The machine hummed and whirred irritably, as if aware that it was being used by an intruder. "We're looking for anything that could connect her either to Mister Freeze or Doctor Strange," the Dark Knight was saying over the mechanical noises, but Joker had already grown bored and stopped listening.

Something across the room caught the clown's eye and he wandered over. It was another desk, much smaller than the mahogany one housing the computer. There was a thick scrapbook open on its surface, but the light this far away from the window was poor, making it difficult to see what had been pasted into the book. Absently, he reached up and snapped on the long, thin desk lamp affixed to the wall. Warm light flooded the small area and he found himself looking down at a face he knew very well – the Batman. Dozens of newspaper clippings about the fugitive were crammed onto the scrapbook's pages, some hanging off over the edge as they vied for space.

"Hm," Joker opined, clicking his tongue against the back of his teeth. Raising his eyes, he took in the additional clippings lying around waiting to be added to the scrapbook, then the pictures of Batman tacked onto the space of wall between the desk's surface and the mounted light. Some of the photos looked like the kind of police surveillance pictures taken by long-range lenses. There were even a few print-offs from CCTV footage. Reflectively, he popped his lips. "And they said _I _was crazy."

It didn't fail to escape his notice that some of the pictures had been defaced, slashes rending the Dark Knight's face in two, or angry scribbles sealing his eyes and mouth forever. Wherever there was space between the crowded clippings, a cramped hand had added in annotations, none of them with anything particularly pleasant to say about the Bat, all of them damnations. A dedicated Bat-hater himself, Joker felt a certain sense of understanding with Gotham's new DA, but the feeling didn't last for long.

Wondering, not a little jealously, what was so special about Batsy that this woman had dedicated a whole scrapbook to her hatred of him, Joker rifled through the upper drawers of the small desk. He came across an unmarked bottle of pills and upended it over the clippings, spreading the drugs amongst the slips of paper. Picking one up between gloved fingers, he examined it without much interest, then glanced over his shoulder to see how his partner in crime was faring.

As soon as he did, as if it had been some kind of unspoken signal, Batman pushed back from the computer and stood up. "I've got what we came for," he announced. "She's been renting a formerly abandoned property out under a different name." Seemingly at random he reached up and picked out a CD from the paltry collection on a shelf above the desk, it was mostly classical and easy listening – no jazz at all, Joker noted with disgust. Batman opened up the CD case and instead of a disc, a neatly folded envelope fell out. "And here's the key for it," he continued, producing the artefact from the envelope.

Whilst he fiddled about with various gadgets from his utility belt, making a copy of the key, he looked over in the other man's direction. Joker stiffened in excitement, wondering if the Bat would see the small shrine dedicated to him and how he would react to it, but apparently it escaped the vigilante's notice because he looked back down with nothing more dramatic than a growl of "Leave everything how you found it, we don't want her to know we've been here."

The clown prince of crime looked down at the mess he'd made, decided it looked fine and simply snapped off the desk light.

Leaving Bats to his own clean-up operation, he made for the phone with its waiting answering machine message. Talk about overlooking potentially vital evidence, he thought to himself, it was lucky he was here. Depressing the button that would play the message, both he and Batman jumped a little as a familiar German-accented voice filled the darkening room.

"Porter, you are never in when you say you will be." The tape relayed faithfully, the machinelike quality it gave the recorded voice completely suiting the emotionless tone of the speaker. "I am beginning to think that you are not as serious about this as I thought you were. You have been useful to me, but you have not been able to keep the Batman from interfering as you promised. Thus, I am thinking of terminating-"

At that moment, the sound of the front door being opened reached Batman's trained ears. Although the message was certainly enlightening, he'd heard enough to confirm certain suspicions and hearing the rest of it wasn't worth getting caught for. He lunged with silent urgency towards the telephone, snapped the message off mid-sentence, and then seized the other man by the elbow so that he could bundle him out of the window. He took a couple of seconds to check that everything was how it had been and then followed suit, just as he was certain he heard high-heeled footsteps approaching the room.

On the road once again, the Batmobile racing along like a shadow given life, Batman glanced at his travelling companion. "Did you hear that noise in the background of the message?"

In that moment they didn't need a psychic link to completely understand the other's thoughts. "Like thunder," Joker agreed. "The same noise we heard when the sky opened."

"Not thunder, it was a train passing. The house Porter is renting is right beside a train track. If we heard it, then that suggests Strange must be there, no doubt along with Freeze. Joker, we can end this tonight."


	15. Chapter 15

Crouched down low amongst the scrubby bushes that surrounded the abandoned house Janice Porter owned, Batman surveyed the property. The house had been listed as deserted before being bought and now that it was owned, it still looked deserted. Although dark had fallen, no lights showed in any of the windows and the place had an air of neglect about it. Standing out on its own, separated from the rest of civilisation save for the rickety train track that ran along beside it, it was uncared for, an outcast lone sentry. Despite the stillness, Batman was convinced that Freeze was somewhere within its near-crumbling walls.

The crime-fighter tapped perfunctorily on the ground in order to capture the attention of Joker, who was crouched beside him. "This is what we're going to do," he began, sketching out a rough rectangle in the dust-like soil, hoping against hope that if the criminal was given a plan then he might just stick to it. He was interrupted by the dry crackling of twigs snapping back into place and looked up to find Joker disappearing across the lawn towards the front door in a purple blur.

Cursing under his breath, he gave chase.

There was no need to use the key he had taken a copy of in order to gain access to the house – his unlikely partner in crime-fighting had taken the front door off of its rusty hinges and it now partially sprawled on the porch, as if it had collapsed there in a drunken stupor. Mentally preparing himself for whatever might greet him on the other side, Batman clenched his jaw and stepped over the threshold.

One man, presumably one of Freeze's, was lying on the floor. Going down on one knee beside him, Batman was relieved to find a weak but steady pulse beating in his neck. The hired thug was bleeding from a head wound, most likely caused by the butt of the gun lying discarded beside him, but the injury didn't look too serious.

"You know, I don't ask just anyone this, but… do you want to know how I got these scars?" An odiously familiar voice came from behind Batman, causing him to stand up and turn around.

"Put him down, Joker," he commanded the clown who had the door guard's buddy by the hair with one hand and was holding a knife to his face with the other.

Joker considered this proposition, running his tongue across his bottom lip before glancing over his shoulder at the vigilante. Almost casually, he brought a booted foot up to connect with his victim's crotch. As the man cried out and doubled up in pain, Joker wrapped both hands around the hilt of his knife and slammed his clenched fists against the back of the male's head, uttering a shrill laugh. The unfortunate victim crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

Batman supposed that had gone very well, considering who he was working with.

"We'll split up to look for Freeze. You take upstairs and I'll take down." He paused, and then added "Don't harm anyone you come across."

"Sure thing, _Bruce_."

The Bat's jaw clenched in irritation. "And don't call me that when I'm wearing the bat-suit."

"Okay Brucey, if that's what does it for you."

There was a steady _thump_-_thump_ of feet as Joker ascended the stairs, speeding up nearer the top and then levelling out as he reached the landing. Standing and listening to the noises get further away, Batman forced himself to calm down. This operation would not go successfully if he allowed the clown to wind him up and anger cloud his judgement.

One hand hovering within easy reach of the arsenal of weapons stored in his utility belt, the Dark Knight worked his way systematically down the hallway, opening each door he came to and searching the room. He came across a lot of spiders' webs and furniture covered in moth-eaten dust sheets, but no costumed villains. After the first couple of doors, he became aware of a strange, uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He checked up and down the hallway, thinking perhaps some kind of survival instinct was warning him of approaching danger, but he was alone except for the dust. Instead of lessening however, the feeling of unease grew stronger.

He'd reached the kitchen and was starting to think that maybe he had been mistaken about the place being used as a hideout – clearly no one had been using this kitchen with its gaping cavity where an oven should have been and the broken refrigerator, its door hanging off to reveal starved insides – when the feeling of disquiet gave way to a low clamouring in his head. It sounded a little like the distant drone of heavy traffic, but they were far removed from any busy roads, and traffic wasn't usually made up of thousands of quiet voices all talking at once.

He might have stood there forever, hypnotised by those myriad disembodied voices, were it not for a train going past at that moment. The whole house seemed to shiver and quake as the great steel behemoth rumbled past and those sounds, hellish in the confined space of the kitchen, drowned out the noise in Batman's head.

Feeling unsettled by the experience, but at least able to continue with his task, the vigilante left the kitchen and made his way to the last door he had yet to inspect. Maybe it would prove more fruitful than the others, although he was starting to lose hope a little. Looking at it, he knew the door would lead onto the basement of the house because it was wider than all of the other doors and had an eerie air about it that was well known to any child who has ever been told to go and fetch something from down those dark, damp, rickety stairs… These were not his memories, they belonged to someone else.

Clearing his mind, Batman laid a gauntleted hand on the doorknob – and froze.

'_There's nothing up here,'_ a voice said conversationally in his head. _'Except for us clowns in the closet – oh, this is _nice, _why would anybody have left this behind?'_

'_The telepathic link, it's working again! Strange must be close.'_

'_We are not alone.'_

Instantly, Batman drew back from the door and retrieved a bat-shaped shuriken from his utility belt. With swift, precise movements, he surveyed the area around him, primed to attack. Laughter filled his head.

'_Uh, no, Bats… Haven't you ever watched the _X-Files_? You know, "the truth is out there". Abandoned houses, telepathic links, bat-men, it's all a bit "zoinks Scoob."' _There was a brief pause and then _'I'm coming back down.'_

Waiting for the other man to join him and smarting a little at the implied criticism, Batman tried cautiously to open the basement door. He found it to be locked and the spark of hope that had been quietly dwindling away to nothing within him burst back into life. In a place such as this, the only reason a door would be locked would be if it led to something important, something secret that only the holders of the key were allowed to know about.

"And _what_ is behind door number three?" Joker's voice came from beside the Dark Knight's elbow, its tone one of affected boredom and disdain.

Frowning slightly, he made an impatient 'be quiet' gesture with one hand. _'In your head; I think there's someone behind this door and I don't want them to hear us.'_

Content that the criminal wouldn't speak out loud again, Batman traded his shuriken for the copy of Porter's key. Something told him that it had never been created for the front entrance at all, that it belonged to this door body and soul. Quietly, he slipped the key into the key hole. It fit perfectly and turned with ease, the door silently swinging open to reveal a dark flight of stairs, a faint light emanating from down below. Just as Batman had suspected, the door did lead down to the basement.

Without a word needing to pass between them, the two men began to descend the stairs. The construction was flimsy, seeming to sway a little beneath their combined weight, but amazingly the steps gave no creak of complaint. Not that Batman would have been able to hear even if they did, for the Joker's heartbeat was pounding through his head, pumping him with the other man's sick excitement. It was like a drug, but at least he was able to fight against it, even exert some of his own self-discipline over it.

'_He's here!'_

It wasn't as dark anymore, Batman could see where he was putting his feet, but it still wasn't enough to be able to make out the room they were approaching. The awkward, downwards slope of the ceiling above the stairs added to that difficulty, blocking the view of the basement. Therefore, he couldn't work out who the clown's exclamation referred to, and communicated as much to him.

'_Doctor Strange,'_ was the prompt, slightly contemptuous reply. _'I can feel his thoughts… if you could, uh, call them that.'_

The last puzzling statement was followed by barking laughter that made the bat-eared crime-fighter feel slightly nauseous. As far as he was aware, he couldn't sense any other thoughts apart from his own and Joker's. But he supposed it made sense that the other man could, as it had been Joker channelling his psychic energy into Strange that had broken the doctor's mind irreparably. That must have given them some kind of connection.

It was a mystery as to how Strange was involved in this whole mess, but it was useful to know that there was at least _someone_ down there at the bottom of the stairs.

At that moment, they reached the point on the stairs where the sloped ceiling dropped suddenly away to reveal a large, open basement. The abrupt transition from the gloom into its glaring brightness left the two men nearly blinded. They stood helplessly, precious seconds rushing dangerously past them as they blinked furiously, trying to clear hazy red and purple spots from their vision.

Once they were finally able to see again, they found themselves faced with the bright expanse of what seemed incongruously to be a hospital ward-cum-criminal hideout. Various items of medical equipment and complex machines littered a white-tiled floor, fluorescent light picking everything out in harsh, blinding tones. Men, presumably more of Freeze's hired muscle, bustled back and forth across the expanse, carrying things and exchanging snatches of conversation in low voices. It was certainly a bizarre sight to come across in the basement of an abandoned house.

One of the men below happened to glance up and see the two immobile intruders. A look of almost comic goggle-eyed surprise passed across his face, accompanied by his dropping the box he'd been carrying. It fell with a loud crash, spilling out various pieces of metal and attracting the attention of the others, who also noticed the interlopers. At a shouted command from one of them, they surged forwards as a pack to neutralise the threat.

Whatever it was that fed the mysterious psychic link between hero and villain was especially strong down in the surreal basement. At the first sign of danger, the two minds became one, a single fighting unit. By mutual consent, a word never needing to pass between them, Batman and Joker remained on the stairs, knowing that higher ground is easier to defend.

Heedless of this tactical manoeuvre, the henchmen rushed forwards, intent upon their prey.

The first one to reach the pair was backhanded powerfully away, his jaw cracking, by the Joker who instead of exhibiting his usual frenzied excitement, moved with the controlled discipline of a trained combatant. The attack was mirrored by Batman, who efficiently kicked back a second hired grunt with a boot to the chest. There was an ethereal quality to their movements, an elegance that was above the everyday confrontation, as the grace of a born murderer combined seamlessly with the ruthless determination of a man who fights out of necessity.

Still not realising the power of what they faced, the henchmen continued to attack. One launched himself up onto the stairs behind the two, throwing both arms around Batman's neck to choke him. Seeing the opening in the Bat's defence, another two men swarmed forwards to take him down. One of them never even made it, as before he could get too close, he found himself grabbed by the front of his sweater. For a moment, he looked into a scarred, painted face as frightening that of Death's, and then he was being launched over the side of the stairs to land on his back, snapping his spine.

However, whilst Joker was distracted, the remaining men surged forwards past his defence, their numbers managing to overwhelm the Bat. Under the sheer accumulated weight of their bodies, he went down on one knee, still trying to fend them off. It was an awkward position and he teetered on the step he was precariously balanced on, almost going down. But he was hardly aware of this – his mind was with that of the other man, who plunged into the array, hauling off the hired muscle until Batman found himself free to stand once again.

With machinelike efficiency, Batman and Joker fought their way to the basement floor, which had become littered with unconscious and groaning henchmen. The attack had dwindled away to nothing, unable to compete with their combined power. Uncomprehending of his surroundings, knowing only that he had emerged victorious from the fray, Batman lifted his eyes and caught sight of something that had escaped his notice before. It was enough to pull his own consciousness back into his head, separating him from Joker with a painful wrench that was almost audible.

Dazed, the connection broken, the crime-fighter and criminal staggered apart, exchanging dazed looks between each other in the few seconds it took their individual personalities to reassert themselves. When they did, Joker barked out a high-pitched laugh which turned into a snarl when he glanced up and his eyes alighted upon the sight that had separated their consciousnesses.

Previously shielded from sight by the comings and goings of his hired henchmen, Mister Freeze dominated the far side of the basement. He stood with proud resistance, his chin tilted up slightly and a sneer was visible on his face through the helmet's glass. Slightly behind him was the most bizarre sight of the night so far – a hospital bed, looking odd and out of place even though it was surrounded by the usual medical paraphernalia. One of his gloved hands was resting protectively on the head frame of the bed, and beneath its covers, cocooned in the gently beeping machines was Doctor Hugo Strange.

Batman has suspected that the good doctor was somehow involved, but it was still a disorientating experience to find the man in the basement of an abandoned house, being looked over by the latest terrorist threat in Gotham City. Even more disconcerting was the fact that far from being in a coma as the Dark Knight had suspected, Strange was awake, his glazed eyes rolling uselessly in their sockets and his mouth gaping automatically like a landed fish. But he was awake.

As if confirming that fact, Joker's voice spoke up in the crime-fighter's head. _'The Doc's broken. Even I can't understand what's going on in that head of his.'_

"Batman," Freeze interrupted coldly, although of course he was unaware of having interrupted anything, "I congratulate you on having found me. However, I must admit I expected you sooner. I also expected you alone. Why have you brought…" there was a brief pause in which ice blue eyes ran dismissively up and down the purple-clad form of Joker, "_that_ along with you. Is he perhaps your lucky mascot?"

In that moment, in a complex burst of painful emotions, Batman fully understood why Joker had offered to join him, why he was so eager to help in the destruction of Freeze, and although he was not a man who was easily scared, the intensity of the hatred terrified him. If that passion were to be released tonight, he knew that he would be unable to control it.

The Joker's intense loathing of Mister Freeze stemmed from the man having threatened the clown's ego, made demands for the limelight he considered his by right and now he was insulting Joker further by failing to recognise him. It took all of Batman's mental strength to keep the Joker from launching an attack.

It was obvious that if this confrontation was to be a success and result in minimal loss of life, then it would have to be over with quickly. The best way to ensure that was to set a deadline.

"It's not me that needs to explain myself," Batman growled, smoothly extracting a heavy gun-like weapon from where it had been concealed beneath his cape. Calmly, he turned a dial on its side, cranking the timer on it up to read 5.00. Having done so, he hefted the weapon smoothly up onto one shoulder and fired. Something splatted onto the wall behind Mister Freeze and with each firing of the gun more of the small round objects, red numbers flashing in their centres, appeared on the walls in strategic positions around the basement. As the little timers hit the wall, stuck there by what looked like transparent putty, they began steadily ticking away a second at a time.

Over Joker's sudden comprehending laughter, Batman said "You have exactly five minutes to tell me what's going on."


	16. Chapter 16

_4.57_ minutes.

The digitalised red numbers, flashing around the walls of the basement like some grizzly kind of Christmas lights, continued to peel away what was possibly the remaining seconds of their lives. Joker grinned and passed his tongue across his scars, sending an appraising look Batman's way. The move was reckless, he liked that. It was going to result in an explosion, he liked that even more.

_4.56_ minutes left to live.

Mister Freeze took four precious seconds to realise what was happening. He'd watched blankly as the small explosives had been fired around the room, but after Batman had uttered his threat, he suddenly realised the weight of the ultimatum. It brought a stiff sneer to his lips.

"You wouldn't," he gloated, confident in his knowledge. "You are bluffing me, Batman. I know that you do not kill and if these explosives were real, then many innocents would be about to die."

Beneath the line of his mask, one corner of the Dark Knight's mouth lifted in a feral grimace of a smile. "They won't die if you tell me what's going on." There was something in his expression that seemed to deny bluffing or anything that wasn't completely and deadly serious. It was inhuman in its single-minded determination.

Freeze's hand tightened around the bedstead he was holding. "I merely want what is mine."

"What's yours?" The Dark Knight snarled. "Nothing is yours. And nothing gave you the right to hold _my_ city to ransom for money that didn't belong to you either."

"Not your city!" The German almost shouted and then made a visible effort to control himself, his head bowing in concentration. "And not your precious money. I do not care about such materialistic possessions." He took a deep breath, then exhaled it, the air coming out in a misty plume. "All I want is my wife."

At those words, Joker glanced dubiously at the shapeless form of Doctor Strange beneath the standard-issue hospital blankets. The doctor let out a small, almost inaudible giggle. A mocking grin replaced the dubious look on Joker's face.

"Four minutes left, Freeze. I suggest you tell me what you've got planned."

"Her name is Nora," the criminal continued as if he hadn't heard the other man. It was as if the threat of the explosives counting down to his demise no longer troubled him. His eyes had taken on a glassy, unfocused look, the yearning gaze of a man who is looking back into the past. "She is the most gentle, intelligent, _beautiful_ woman I have ever met. There is no one else like her in the world. All I want is to hold her in my arms again."

"Threats, murder and abduction aren't going to bring her back." Even though Batman's voice was disgusted, it was tinged with understanding too. He knew what it was to lose someone you loved. He knew the pain of it threefold in fact.

"Oh, but you don't understand. It will bring her back."

Joker rolled his eyes expansively. All he could think about was shutting Freeze up permanently.

'_Keep him ranting Bats, and I'll put our boy here on, heh, ice.'_

Without breaking eye contact with the German, Batman thought back _'Nothing lethal_' and received nothing but laughter in reply. But still he trusted that his word would be obeyed, or maybe he just didn't care anymore. He couldn't be certain which.

For all Freeze's cold exterior, it was obvious that he was a mental breakdown waiting to happen, like the waters of a turbulent sea momentarily tamed by a thick top layer of ice. It shouldn't prove too difficult to find the weak points of the structure and crack that frosty layer, destroying it.

"You're delusional, Freeze."

"No. No, no, _no_. She is in stasis, like our friend the doctor here. When I have bled your filthy city of its money then I shall be able to wake her, she will leave the land of ice and endless winter and come back to me. With the money of these simple fools you babysit, I shall be able to afford the best medical care and nurse her back to health. Under the guidance of Hugo of course, he is the only one with the knowledge to save her."

So that was the connection between the two men, the Bat had it worked out in an instant. He concentrated on keeping his face absolutely still so that the increasingly agitated Freeze wouldn't notice that he was being stalked, in a real-life parody of every child's worst nightmare, by a grinning clown. The crime-fighter watched in his peripheral vision as Joker, crouching low, advanced upon the oblivious victim, reaching into the ominous folds of his coat for a weapon.

_3.15_ minutes left to save all of their lives.

"So, Dark Knight, do not talk to me of what you cannot understand. My love for Nora is above your petty morals. Our love makes the mind pure, the spirit clear; it has allowed me to see the world for what it really is – a place full of many mindless droning insects, impatiently building colonies of rules so that they do not have to think about how meaningless their loveless lives are. Only those enlightened such as Nora and myself are above it all. The most noble task they can ever hope to perform is to give up everything so that I may have her love again.

"And now, Batman, prepare to – Urk!"

Not a moment too soon, the criminal's tirade was cut off by an iron bar making violent contact with the side of his helmet. The force of the blow knocked him a few paces to the side, a complex network of cracks appearing on the thick glass. He had barely enough time to recover before Joker struck again, and again.

The snarl of a cornered animal pushed its way past Freeze's lips. Unable to believe he had let himself be taken off guard like that, like some blundering rank amateur, he hefted the freeze gun strapped to his arm and took aim at his attacker. It was difficult to see through the cracks that now shrouded his head, but he could make out the dark blurred outline of the Batman and to the side, the pale faced smudge of the Bat's pet lunatic. The one thing Janice had never mentioned when she'd spoken to him of the vigilante. His hand started to close around the lever that would release the deadly jet-stream of liquid nitrogen.

Just as he was about to fire, something slammed into his arm, knocking his aim off at the critical moment. A blob of ice appeared harmlessly on the basement's ceiling.

Batman drew another Batarang from his utility belt, ready to throw again if it was needed.

Giving a shout of frustration and anger, Freeze backed away from the two looming nightmare shadows. It was no good leaving his helmet on, it was like seeing the world in the reflection of a fun house mirror. Impatiently, he reached up and tore it free of the clasps fastening it to his space-age suit, throwing the useless object aside.

His vision cleared, he had a brief moment of alarm when he realised that the clown was nowhere to be seen.

Then there was the sound of metal wheels scraping across tiles and a great weight landed on his back, strong arms wrapping around his now exposed and vulnerable throat. The choking smell of old greasepaint filled his nostrils. The clown! He must have launched himself from Strange's hospital bed and onto Freeze's back.

He gasped at his rapidly diminishing air supply, scrabbling ineffectually at the iron grip around his neck. Even with the extra padding of his suit, he could feel his ribs cracking beneath the pressure being exerted on them by the madman's clinging knees.

"You know," a squirming, nauseating voice spoke up beside his ear, "It will almost be a shame to kill you. You have some pretty good ideas, even if they are a little… twisted." In compliment to the words, the blade of a knife appeared in Freeze's direct line of vision, winking viciously at him.

Desperately, the German backed towards the nearest wall, which was thankfully close, hoping to crush his adversary against it. The jolt of the impact reached him through the other man's body and he felt the clown's grip loosen around his neck, so he repeated the action, dragging in grateful lungfuls of air.

"Oof," the voice in his ear grunted as he threw his weight back against the wall once again. "Whoo-ha-ha, I'd never have guessed you liked to play so _rough_." It then dropped in pitch, became a menacing purr twining itself sinuously around his inner ear as it assured him "But don't worry, so do I."

Movement out of the corner of his eye momentarily distracted Freeze from his predicament and he looked up to see that Batman had dropped into a defensive crouch, as if under the instruction of a given order only he could hear. He didn't have much time to puzzle over this before the sound of tearing material and bursting pipes assailed his ears. There was a sensation of movement around the area of his torso and he looked down to see a purple gloved hand dragging a knife across the front of his suit, his precious suit. Nitrogen in freezing, gaseous form burst from his chest at an alarming rate in a lethal arterial spray of ethereal blood, draining him.

With the chemical bleeding from him, the coldness that it kept him cocooned within also began to fade. Freeze's tortured limbs started to tingle unpleasantly as for the first time in many months they were exposed to normal temperature. Feeling came back to his extremities, he could feel his heartbeat and his metabolism speeding painfully back up to a normal rate after having been slowed by the cold of his suit. He was dying.

An inarticulate cry of grief and frustration burst from him. Anger lending him inhuman strength, he seized his potential murderer by the arms and wrenched him up over his head to the floor below. Joker's body hit the ground with a back-breaking thud and remained motionless, the air knocked from him. Triumphantly, Freeze advanced upon the immobilised man and aimed the nozzle of his freeze gun at the painted face. He could sense the Bat sprinting towards him, but that didn't matter, nothing could stop him. Not even his own imminent death. A cold smile touched Freeze's lips and he depressed the lever.

Nothing happened.

The clown's crazed laughter, ragged from lack of breath, throbbed in Freeze's head like a second heartbeat. He stared disbelievingly at the weapon on his arm. His fist tightened once again around the lever and still nothing happened. The fuel that had powered it was gone, the suit nothing more than an empty shell. His body was warm, consumed by forbidden passions. His connection, his only connection with his wife was severed. He began to scream.

"You've killed us! You've killed us! I'm dying. Nora, oh God, Nora… I'm dying…"

Batman, upon reaching the hysterical scene, put a swift end to it by smartly driving his fist into Mister Freeze's face. The broken man buckled silently to his knees and then simply knelt there, staring out at nothing with empty eyes whilst blood dripped steadily from his nose.

'_Mind giving me a hand up, Batsy?'_

Dragging his eyes from the pitiful sight of the icy terrorist, Batman glanced down at the man on the floor. Joker had one hand raised expectantly, the other one pressed against his side. A faintly grimacing smile finished the job his scars had started. Automatically, Batman took hold of the proffered hand and pulled the owner to his feet. As he did so, the clown gave a rumbling groan of pain, clutching tighter at his side.

'_Are you hurt?'_

'_Nothing I won't get a kick out of later.'_

Batman spared a glance at the explosives. _0.30_ seconds before they died.

"Wh-what's going on?"

Two pairs of eyes turned instantly on the intrusion of a voice in a place where the spoken word was no longer required. It was one of Freeze's henchmen who had broken the silence. Having regained consciousness, he stood uncertainly by the basement stairs, holding onto the railing for support.

"The building is about to blow. Wake the others and get them out of here."

A few precious seconds ticked by in inactivity as Batman waited to make sure that the man would comply. Once he saw enough of the hired muscle awake and helping those either too injured or unconscious to move up the stairs, he turned back to his own little trio of criminals.

'_No time for the stairs,'_ he thought at Joker, unable to help another glance at the timers that were counting down the final seconds of their lives. _'I saw another way out. You make sure Freeze comes with us.'_ As he transmitted his instructions, he bent and lifted up the prone body of Doctor Strange, breaking the man free of the beeping machines that surrounded him. Ominously, the heart monitor was silenced mid-beat as it lost connection with its patient, but Strange continued to draw in regular breaths.

Hoisting the pitifully wasted body over one shoulder, Batman ran for the exit he had spotted across the room. Behind him he could hear a few muttered threats as Joker tried to get his ward up and moving, and then the sounds of a scuffle as the clown gave up cajoling verbally and instead chose to drag the other man along like a sack of ill-gotten loot. They might all just make it out alive.

_0.15_ seconds. It could last a lifetime, or be gone in a flash.

The Dark Knight and his burden of useless flesh and bone pelted up the few stone steps that led to the outside. Like most big old houses, this one's basement had been fitted with a hefty pair of wooden doors that allowed access from the garden. It was through these that Batman planned to escape. He only hoped they weren't padlocked and chained from the outside. As he reached them, he pivoted neatly so that he could strike at their centre seam with his unencumbered shoulder. The wood of the doors turned out to be as neglected and decayed as the rest of the house, and they buckled easily beneath his muscular weight, tearing free of hinges that had gone soft with rust.

To most captives breaking free of their potential tombs, the fresh air smelt unbearably sweet, full of the promise of new life, but Batman had no time to enjoy the sensations of freedom – he had to put as much distance as possible between himself and the house before it exploded. He sprinted across the scrubby grass, the slipstream of air created by his billowing cape making him feel as if he were being dragged back by grasping hands, although the effect was most probably psychosomatic.

Reaching the edge of the house's grounds, a thin line of bushes separating him from the empty road beyond, he threw Strange down and prepared to shield him from the blast with his own body.

He was momentarily distracted by Joker pulling up beside him, dragging the stumbling, near-comatose Freeze along by the back of his collar. The man's bulky suit hung in tatters from his body, tubing spilling out from rends in the fabric like guts.

With a world-weary grunt of effort, the clown pushed his captive forwards. Freeze staggered uncertainly then went down on his knees, where he received a vicious boot to the backside that left him sprawling face down on the ground. He seemed, however, oblivious to this undignified treatment, merely murmuring something to himself over and over in such low tones that Batman couldn't make it out.

Wondering if he were to have another broken sanity on his conscience, Batman started to lower himself to cover Strange, only to find that the man was gone. Impossible, considering the doctor's state, but the evidence was right there in front of him.

Alarmed, knowing that the explosives were about to detonate any moment now, he lifted his head and scanned the area. Almost immediately he saw the white flash of an ill-fitting hospital gown darting across the lawn like a diminutive, dumpy ghost. It was heading straight for the doomed house. With a shout, Batman took off after the figure, determined to stop it from killing itself as it undoubtedly would, but something collided with his legs, knocking him to the grass.

As he went down, Joker's voice screamed in his head _'No you don't Batsy, you're not leaving me. I won't let you leave me.'_

He struggled against that voice, against the burning, wiry weight entangling his legs, but he couldn't break free. And then Joker was on top of him, heavy and oppressive, trapping him and pushing his face down into the foul-smelling grass and inside his head there was still so much screaming…

He felt the explosion before he heard it. The ground shuddered beneath him and a blasting wave of heat tried to tear him out of his skin, even though Joker provided a protective barrier over him. Then the blast roared through his ears, threatening to burst them, followed by the monstrous noise of the building collapsing in on itself.

And then it was all over and the world inside Batman's head became very quiet and very empty.


	17. Chapter 17

It might have been the end of the world. Apocalyptic darkness was all that filled a sky devoid of moon and stars, just a blank canvas stretched across eternity. No night birds gave their call and flitted from tree to tree, no animal rustled furtively on the ground. The world had entered its graveyard shift. Man too, seemed to have deserted its native planet, for there were no voices to be heard, no reassuring sound of traffic. There was no movement anywhere.

Batman stirred as the weight upon him lifted, but for a few moments he made no attempt to move. He felt disorientated, confused. But then the soft murmurings of Mister Freeze reached him and reality firmly reasserted itself. He stood up and looked to the unnaturally dark sky, dust and smoke from the explosion obscuring the stars. The house itself had been reduced to a pile of rubble, an ungainly mark on the horizon.

"He's gone," Joker said quietly to no one in particular. He stood a little way apart from the other man, posture as slouched as the rubble that used to be a building and his hands shoved into his pockets. The hectic make up on his face was smeared, mixed with blood from the myriad of small cuts that flying debris from the explosion had opened up on his skin. He looked like the corpse of a battered man that, given life, has crawled out of his grave to wreak vengeance on mortality.

"I could have saved him," The Dark Knight replied, turning away from the sickening sight in anger.

Forcefully turning his mind to more practical concerns, he knelt beside Freeze and checked him over for any injuries. The man was unhurt, having been out of the worst range of the blast, but he was still in shock. After having become so used to the perpetual cold of the suit, his body was under a lot of strain as it tried to readjust to normal temperatures once again. Batman was also well versed enough in matters of psychology to know that the German had been mentally devastated, as well as physically, by the destruction of his freeze suit, seeing it as the destruction of his relationship with his wife.

It was tragic, what had happened to Freeze, but the death of a loved one was no excuse for turning to crime. As much as Batman could understand and relate to the man's pain, he was still a criminal and had to be justly punished by the law. To make sure that there would be no trouble until the police could be notified, the caped crusader produced a pair of Batcuffs and secured Freeze's hands behind his back. The man gave no indication of being aware of his surroundings, locked as he was within his own private hell.

That only left him with the Joker to deal with.

As if he'd read his thoughts, although of course that was no longer possible, the clown spoke up. "We both know what's going to happen now."

Batman thought about how empty he felt now that the psychic link had been destroyed along with Strange. He also recounted the agonising mental torture of working with Joker, of sharing the madman's thoughts, the hunger for destruction that formed the heart of the man.

"It doesn't have to," he replied, not looking up from Freeze's cuffed hands.

Joker uttered a short, barking laugh that echoed eerily in the stillness. "It does. You know it does. No more talk Bats; there's been enough of that."

That was true. There was no reasoning with men like Joker, the only language they truly understood was the one they made their living out of – violence. He was unwilling to admit it to himself, but Batman knew it would be a relief to tap into the darkness that lived within his own heart and give in to it. He would serve justice to this murderer and use it to fill the emptiness he'd felt since the death of his parents. He owed nothing to the man now, not with the psychic link between them destroyed forever. There was only justice. The Dark Knight clenched his fists.

Then something struck him savagely across the back, right between his shoulder blades, knocking him to the ground. His armour protected him from the worst of the blow and he was able to use the momentum of it to launch himself sideways, lashing out with one foot to catch his attacker on the knees. But whatever had hit him in the back collided with his ankle, knocking him off balance at the most precariously balanced point of his kick and causing him to roll helplessly off to one side.

As he came to a stop on his back, he found himself looking up to see Joker standing over him, wielding a stout plank of wood presumably liberated from the wreckage.

"Get up," the murderer snarled down at him. And then, face twisting in demonic fury, he roared "Get up and fight me!"

"You'll never learn, will you Joker?" Batman growled deep in his throat. Tensing his muscles, he brought both legs up in a powerful kick to the abdomen of the man who just moments before had used his own body to shield him from the explosion. The kick was enough to send Joker staggering back, fighting to keep hold of both his balance and his oxygen, allowing the vigilante enough room to stand up safely.

Without a single pause, Batman headed straight for the other man. "Violence," he snarled, grabbing Joker by the front of his shirt, "is never…" he yanked the criminal close, "…the answer." With a sharp movement, he brought his heavily armoured forehead cracking down against Joker's, aiming to knock him out.

However, Joker didn't go down. Reeling and disorientated as the headbutt left him, he managed to wrench himself free of the Bat's grasp and back off out of range. Gone was his smile, only scar tissue left in its place, and gone were his taunts and laughter. The fight was no longer a game to him, it was a matter of life or death – or, to be more specific, Batman's death. He came at the vigilante in a towering fury, all semblance of control lost as he lashed out wildly at the air with his makeshift weapon.

Although the attack had the strength and ferocity behind it of a wild animal, it lacked finesse. The first few swings missed their target completely and Batman was able to halt the next couple on his forearms, batting them aside. However, the erratic pattern of the blows meant that some managed to get past his defensive guard and he took a few hits to the chest and head. If he were to avoid further injury and have any chance of stopping Joker, then he would have to switch to the offensive.

As the plank of wood came rushing towards him once again, he reached out and caught it in an open palm. Taking a firm hold, he gave it a sharp tug, at the same time catching hold of Joker's arm in his free hand and wrenching it in the opposite direction. The result was a nauseating crack of breaking bone and the improvised weapon flew off into the singed grass, lost from sight in the shrouded darkness.

"Is that the best you can do?" Joker giggled, a little faintly, his feverish eyes drifting down to survey his arm dangling uselessly from the Batman's gauntleted fist. The pain of the splintered bone in his arm must have been excruciating, but he didn't seem to notice. "After all we've been through, you're still not man enough to kill me."

With a flick of his uninjured wrist, a knife appeared smoothly in his hand. Before Batman could react, Joker had flung himself at him.

There followed a brief but ferocious struggle which held the potential to become an eternal stalemate, each man evenly matched in strength and fury, neither prepared to give up. They might have stayed like that until the end of time, trading punches and kicks forever, had it not been for the Dark Knight's vow never to take a life. Sensing that his opponent was holding back, Joker became furious. Snarling and growling like an animal, he went for the Bat with a sudden renewed vigour, managing to catch him off balance and knock him to the floor.

There were a few jumbled, incoherent seconds in which both fought for dominance and then a searing pain ripped through one side of Batman's face. He cried out, throwing Joker off of him with superhuman effort, before raising a hand to the exposed part of his face. Agony flared through his cheek at the touch and his gloved fingers came away bloodied. More of the viscous, metallic-tasting liquid filled his mouth and he had to spit and retch to keep from choking on it.

The sick bastard had opened his cheek up. In that moment, all of Batman's iron resolve never to become a creature like the one that had taken his parents from him melted away. Rage descended upon him and he was prepared to kill Joker.

Hero and villain became unidentifiable from each other, both driven by a primal need to kill, neither slowed down by their injuries. They attacked each other viciously, trading blow after blow until the Dark Knight's superior strength and training won through, allowing him to overpower Joker.

Pinned up against the trunk of a gnarled old tree by his throat the clown's muddy eyes widened in understanding of his imminent death. Any fear he might have felt at the prospect, staring down into the bloody and ruined face of his executioner, was only fleeting. His face broke into an amused grin.

"Do it," he taunted softly, his voice coming out in an uneven rasp as his throat was slowly crushed beneath the Bat's forearm. "Kill me. Become what you've always known you are, just like me."

In that moment, the man's dying words meant nothing to Batman. The higher functions of his brain had been cancelled out by animal fury. The only thing that held meaning for him was death and he intended to deliver it. The bat had eclipsed the man.

Thankfully, he was saved from himself by the mournful wail of a police siren ripping through the still night air. Coming back to his senses, his breathing ragged, he gradually released his grip on Joker, who slid coughing and choking down the tree trunk to the ground. He realised with a shock how close he had come to killing the man, to becoming a monster.

Slowly, he turned and his face was bathed in alternate red and blue as a squad of police cars tore up the road, their sirens deafening. They screeched to a halt outside the bombsite of the house and doors flew open, spilling out uniformed men and women led by Jim Gordon.

"Batman!" Breaking away from the others upon catching sight of the caped crusader, Gordon sprinted across the lawn to him. "What's going on? I head what sounded like an explosion, so got a few men together to investigate."

"Commissioner, are you-?" The Dark Knight paused, dazed, his thoughts a jumbled mess that was impossible to control. He made a conscious effort to pull himself together.

"No," Gordon returned shortly. "But that doesn't mean I can't report anything suspicious I might happen to hear." He was about to say something more, but then he squinted and took a closer look at the other man's face. "You're bleeding."

Batman winced and waved a dismissive hand. "It's nothing."

The other man's eyes lingered over the gaping wound a moment, but he said no more about it. "What happened here?"

It was then, his mind alert and functioning again like a man who has managed to shake off the residual disorientation of a vivid nightmare, that Batman remembered the Joker. He turned quickly and found, without much surprise, that the man had taken opportunity of the vigilante's distraction and escaped. A quick surveillance of the surrounding area gave no sign to indicate which way the criminal might have gone, but Batman couldn't let him get away, not again.

"Commissioner, I have to…" He started to say, but was interrupted by an exclamation from Gordon.

"Freeze!" Having spotted the prone criminal, the ex-commissioner went over to him. "Is he the one responsible for the explosion?"

Agitated, Batman found it easier and simpler just to say yes.

Gordon considered this, glancing back at the pile of useless smoking rubble. "Did everyone get out okay?"

"All except one, who ran back in. Commissioner, I really should-"

Once again he was interrupted, this time by one of the police officers running up. She went to say something to Gordon but then she caught sight of the Batman and her mouth dropped open in a perfect 'O' of surprise. For a moment her face blanched white with fear, but then swiftly recovering, she reached for the handcuffs dangling from her belt, hand deliberately brushing up against her holstered gun.

"Batman, you're under arrest for murder, attempted murder, disturbing the peace and terrorist activities-"

"What do you think you are doing, Sergeant?" Gordon interrupted in arch tones.

Surprised, the policewoman's probably oft-rehearsed words halted and she glanced uncertainly at him. "Commis- Uh, Gordon? I was arresting the fugitive Batman, sir."

"This man has just neutralised the terrorist threat Mister Freeze and delivered him to us, and now you want to arrest him for it? I think you need to reassess where your loyalties lie, Sergeant Peck. Get Freeze loaded into a squad car and then secure the perimeter."

Sergeant Peck faltered for a moment, clearly confused. But then she saluted with a "Yes sir!"

Exhibiting surprising strength, she went to Freeze and hefted him easily up beneath the arms in order to escort him to one of the waiting police cars. Even though Gordon was no longer Commissioner, old habits died hard and he was still well liked and trusted enough for his orders to mean something.

A wry smile on his face, he turned back to the other man. "I hope I made the right decision there." He was thinking of the stories that had been circulating about Batman's involvement with the Joker. Stories he'd been trying to avoid thinking about too much.

Batman realised with a stab of guilt that hurt more than his wounded cheek that he would have to let Joker get away once again. His first priority was to fill Gordon in on what had gone on, the dangers that threatened the political system itself in the guise of Janice Porter, and what could be done to handle that threat. He nodded curtly.

"You did, Commissioner."

At a noise from behind him, he turned his head sharply, wishful thinking suggesting that for some bizarre reason Joker might have returned, but it was only some policemen starting to sift through the rubble in search of Stange. Resigning himself to the task at hand, he leant in slightly closer to Gordon, lowering his voice to minimise the chance of being overheard.

Gordon listened carefully to what the man had to tell him, mulling it over in his head. Apart from a nod every now and then to show that he understood, he gave no outward sign of listening, as he asked no questions and no reaction passed across his face.

His attention was broken however, when Freeze awoke to his situation to find himself cuffed in the back of a police car and started shouting imperious threats. Gordon turned automatically to see if his assistance was required. He knew that when he turned back Batman would already have disappeared, but tonight that didn't matter.


	18. Chapter 18

"For far too long, Gotham has allowed itself to be defined by those who stand outside the law: Scarecrow, Batman, Joker, Mister Freeze. For far too long the morally upstanding citizen has allowed himself to be terrorised by people too ashamed to show us their real identities. We have allowed cowards to control us.

"And who has allowed this to happen? Your own government, that's who. The police, the politicians, all have made room to accommodate these costumed criminals. But I say 'no more!' It's time for the ordinary citizens to start taking back control of their lives."

Freeze stood quietly in the doorway of the conference room, listening to Gotham's DA deliver her speech to a rapt audience of cameras and microphones. Those machines had been built for her alone and she loved them for it. The reporters and cameramen behind those machines loved her back; even the women, who looked up at her in the kind of awed envy only women know.

Even Freeze had to admit she cut a striking figure standing there behind the podium, sun from the large windows behind her creating a golden halo around her coiffured head. Although he listed her physical merits in a clinical, detached way. No more emotions for him. He eyed the slavering male reporters in the front row with disgust. No matter how beautiful Janice was, she was nothing compared to Nora either before or after the disease of her brain had ravished her handsome good looks.

"Please, no questions until the end," Janice snapped at a reporter who had half raised his hand, her fine blonde eyebrows coming together in a frown. The reporter flushed like a mawkish adolescent.

There was no danger of Freeze being spotted from his place behind the doors, the only person anyone had eyes for was Gotham's latest rising star, the city's very own Lady Guinevere without all that ascending up out of the lake nonsense.

A shiver of cold ran down his back and he allowed himself a certain grim satisfaction in the sensation. In exchange for his promising to cooperate, the police had fetched one of his spare suits to replace the ruined one and allowed him to wear it, although of course they hadn't allowed him to wear his freeze gun. He'd been in such a state that he would have agreed to anything the police had said just to be cold once again. Now back in his suit, his mind clear, he knew that he'd made the right decision in agreeing to comply with their orders.

He turned his eyes outward from his thoughts to refocus his attention on the press conference. Across the room, Sergeant Peck caught his eye and gave an almost imperceptible nod. That was his cue. Time to get this over with.

Mister Freeze aimed a hard kick at the door he had been standing behind, sending it flying inwards to hit the wall with a loud bang, revealing his imposing form. The noise had its desired effect, as almost immediately it broke the spell of Janice's words and people turned towards it. A clamour of frightened excitement broke out when they saw who the source of the disturbance was. Cameras were swiftly turned towards him. Somewhere off to the side, a woman uttered a shrill scream.

"It is in acknowledgement of this that I propose a new law-" For a few timeless seconds, Janice continued her arduously prepared speech, unaware that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Then the scream penetrated her consciousness and she realised that someone else had stepped into the limelight that was meant only for her. She looked up sharply, a reproach already forming on her lips, but they were lost in a gasp when her eyes fell on Freeze.

"Hello Janice," he said calmly. "You seem surprised to see me."

An ugly flush crawled up the DA's neck to stain her cheeks, mouth twisting in anger. The German's appearance had caught her completely off guard – never, not even in blithe assessment of worst case scenarios that could arise out of her involvement with Freeze, had she ever imagined something like this happening. It was like suddenly finding out that the old childhood nightmare of turning up naked to an important exam you hadn't prepared for had become reality. Her mind hit a blank wall and remained there, bashing its head impotently against its relentless surface, so she reacted on panicked instinct.

"Freeze!" She barked, a scowl on her face. "What are you doing here? Come to make some more demands?" Upper lip curling in a snarl, she glanced down at the cameras around her, coaxing their attention away from the criminal in the doorway. "I think you'll find us Gothamites are no pushovers, we won't give in."

Freeze seemed to consider this a moment, a general air of calm surrounding him. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and thoughtful, a telling contrast to the uneven excitement heard in the voice of the DA. "You are right Janice; they are a lot hardier than you led me to believe at our first meeting. I realise that now."

A low murmur from the room greeted this statement as reporters speculated amongst themselves as to what it might mean. Doubtful, curious glances were thrown Porter's way. Again, Freeze knew that he had made the right decision. After all Janice had put him through, only for him to come out of it on the other side with nothing but a maximum security prison cell to look forwards to, he felt he was justified in enjoying the look of panic that surfaced on the woman's face. He could see that she knew she was losing her audience. Reporters, always hungry for scandal, had sniffed out their prey and begun to move towards the oddly dressed criminal. They were in _his_ power now; he could do anything with him that he wanted. And he wanted so many things.

Another glance at Peck and he knew what it was he wanted most of all. He wanted to destroy Janice, as she had destroyed his hopes of ever being with Nora again.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the woman was blustering.

Freeze fixed her with his impassive blue gaze, silencing her. "I think you do. You told me to meet you here, did you not?" He spared a glance for the enraptured reporters, adding frostily "If I had known you were entertaining then I would not have come."

If there was anything that annoyed Janice more, it was people that couldn't keep to pre-arranged appointments. Her patience snapped, along with her clear thinking. "You know very well that I told you to meet me _after_ the press conference. Or is your brain so frozen solid that you can't even remember a simple instruction?" Too late did she realise what she had said, when the vacuum left by the collective gasp of reporters brought her attention to the whirring cameras that had just broadcast her confession to the city. She had been tricked into condemning herself, outwitted by a man who kept his wife in a freezer. Her long nailed hands clenched into fists out of sight behind the podium.

Desperately, she tried to cover up her blunder, hoping that no one would recognise the significance of her words. They were only reporters after all, part of the mindless herd. "Police!" She shouted at the uniformed officers who lined one wall of the conference room, pointing an accusing finger at Freeze. "Arrest this criminal."

Peck regarded the incensed woman with a hard look. "With pleasure, ma'am," she replied, but made no move no obey.

Janice was ready to scream with impatience, a mounting look of fury on her face, when yet another unpleasant surprise came bursting in through the conference room doors. A ripple of excitement went once again through the reporters, who were having the time of their professional lives, when they saw the mysteriously resigned Commissioner standing there.

They parted respectfully for him as, bypassing Freeze altogether, he made his way straight for the new DA.

In the midst of the reporters, his gaze flickering over each in turn, Gordon reached into the folds of his coat and produced his badge. "I want these cameras off and then I want you all out," he commanded in authoritative tones. This was met with a general air of reluctance and much grumbling, but when the police officers left their positions by the wall and began moving amongst the reporters, ushering them towards the door, all the cameras were obligingly turned off. That didn't stop the reporters from recording every meticulous detail in their minds however, even as they were painstakingly herded out.

Janice watched Gordon's single-minded approach, heedless now of everything except her. There was a smug look on his face that she would have liked to slap right off of him, and she probably would have tried to, were she not paralysed with shock. As it was, it was all she could manage to hiss vindictively "You're behind this, aren't you? Whatever it is you're trying to do, it's not going to work Jim, because you're not Commissioner anymore. You're _nothing_ and you can do _nothing_."

At first it seemed that he couldn't have heard her, because he made no reply. But then he was standing right in front of the podium and he was putting his badge in her face, saying "I was reappointed just this morning, Miss Porter. And as for my first official act…" Slipping his badge back into his coat, he came up with a pair of handcuffs in its place.

"Janice Porter, you are under arrest for aiding and abetting the known criminal Mister Freeze."

"What?" Janice near-shrieked, her mouth twisting in rage. The microphone attached to her podium was still functioning and it picked up her voice, carrying it easily to the throng of reporters at the door, who strained back against the police officers trying to eject them, eager to see what the fuss was about. "This is a complete and utter outrage! You are arresting me on false charges. What evidence could you possibly have of my involvement with Freeze?"

Gordon cast a pointed look over his shoulder. "Come on Janice, you don't want to make a scene."

"I know who put you up to this," the disgraced DA suddenly hissed, leaning forwards over the top of the podium like a zealous priest of hellfire and brimstone, so that she could deliver her accusation right into Gordon's face. A strand of hair escaped its neatly hairsprayed arrangement and fell into eyes blazing with anger, but she hardly seemed to notice it. "It was your little pal the Batman, wasn't it? He told you to do this, didn't he? I bet you two even conspired together to come up with fake evidence to plant on me.

"Well I've got news for you – I'm fed up with that bat-eared _freak_ ruining my life! I won't let him get away with it any longer." For a moment her eyes burned into Gordon's and then lifted, coming to rest slyly on the knot of people blocking the doorway. A joyless smile touched her lips as an idea formed in her mind.

"Call off this ridiculous charade Jim, or I'll tell them all who you've been taking moonlit rides with."

"Was that yet another threat of blackmail I just heard?" The Commissioner asked with raised eyebrows. "I certainly hope it wasn't, because that could add considerable time to your prison sentence."

"He is behind this though, isn't he?" The woman's eyes flickered frantically between both of Gordon's, searching them deeply. "He just can't stand me being successful. All my life I've been second best to that lawless miscreant and now when I finally have the chance to get rid of him he does _this_ to me! And you're helping him!"

Gordon had expected the arrest to be difficult, but nothing like this. The woman was enraged beyond reason, spouting conspiracy theories. Even though he felt she deserved everything she was about to get for willingly unleashing another terrorist threat on Gotham whilst it still wasn't fully recovered from the last one, he couldn't help but pity her slightly. Despite Janice's obvious anger, she seemed lost somehow, vulnerable. It seemed she had some deep underlying psychological damage relating to the Batman in some way. Not for the first time, Gordon wondered if it really was the right thing to allow a masked vigilante so much power, but now was not the time for idealistic concerns. He had a job to do.

So, he did his job. Any notions he might have had about getting his own back for the blackmail couldn't have been further from his mind as he cuffed the almost hysterical DA and recited rights that she didn't listen to. Rights that she knew off by heart as well as he did, ones that she had studied and learnt to uphold in law school. She seemed so small and helpless to him now, a petty little thing that couldn't possibly ever have held that much power over him. There were much bigger things in the world than the Janice Porters.

She didn't even have the power to intimidate him with her glacial beauty anymore, not now that the mascara smudged by her tears and her disarrayed hair pointed towards the ugliness inside of her.

The police vans had been parked around the back of the building the press conference had been held in, partly to keep the media out and partly because the situation on the streets was still bad. Riots had been threatening to break out for the past couple of days, the crowds baying for Batman's blood more often than not. Although the police had managed to keep control so far, the general opinion was that it would be wise if the DA's arrest was kept as out of the way as possible. At least that was, until it was splashed all over the front page of the newspapers the next morning. But so too would the news of Mister Freeze's arrest, and Gordon hoped that would placate the angry Gothamites a little. It would show that their police force was still there for them, fighting for their safety. Although of course, it had actually been the Bat who had brought an end to the threat.

Giving Janice a vehemently resisted hand up into the back of a waiting van, Gordon was so wrapped up in thoughts of the Batman that when he first noticed the pointy eared shadow on the cement, it didn't strike him as anything out of the ordinary. But then he gradually returned to the outside world and the significance of the sight struck him.

Hurriedly, he pulled shut the van's doors and gave them a brisk slap with the heel of his hand to indicate that it could get going. Once that was done, he turned and searched the array of buildings behind him for the source of the shadow.

His eyes rested upon the dark figure, crouched on top of an ornamental pillar like a medieval gargoyle given life. He squinted, the vigilante's face blurred at this distance, giving the man a small nod of greeting which was returned. He wondered why Batman had showed up, surely not to gloat over the arrest of the DA – that wasn't his style – so it could only be that he was here to oversee the arrest, make sure it all went smoothly. In a way this irritated Gordon, for it showed up how dependent the force had become on the actions of a vigilante. But alongside his irritation, he simultaneously glad to see the Bat. Evidently there were some things Gordon needed to sort out for himself. As it was, things had been allowed to go on for far too long without critical analysis.

Gordon made a sign indicating that he wished to speak later and was met with another nod, this one of agreement.


	19. Chapter 19

The day finally over and most people home for the night, Gordon was just getting around to moving his stuff back into his office. In some ways it felt as if he had never left, in many others it felt like he had been away forever. Either way, it was good to be back.

Backing in through the door with a box that seemed much heavier than the one he had left with, he ignored the light switch and went straight for the desk, dumping the box gratefully. Stepping away, he placed his hands in the small of his back and attempted to stretch out a threatening muscle cramp, his gaze going to the darkest corner of the room.

"I don't suppose you'd accept an offer for a coffee, would you?" he asked the shadows.

"I can't stay long," they replied in gravelly tones.

Gordon nodded and made for the battered old kettle that resided in the opposite corner. "I don't want to see you here again," he said quietly, pulling a stained mug towards him and spooning level amounts of instant coffee into it. "Or anywhere near the police headquarters." He hesitated over the sugar, and then added some of that to his mug as well. The kettle was checked to see that it still contained water. Seeing that it did, he switched it on.

Just as he'd expected, Batman made no reply. Gordon massaged the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses, wondering how best to continue. He'd given this matter a lot of thought and finally come to a decision; he just hoped it was the right one. "I'm – we're all very grateful for your help on the Mister Freeze case. And I trust that whatever… assistance you might have had is now over?"

He paused and was rewarded with an "It's over." That was all he'd wanted to hear, that reassurance, so he would push the issue no further. Whatever reasons Batman had for allying himself with the Joker must have been worthwhile and now it was over, he could be sure they wouldn't be troubled by the clown again. At least, he hoped that was the case.

"It's not for me to say whether in the long run you're a force for good or for bad, and I suspect that even if I actively acknowledged the illegality of what you do, you'd still carry on regardless," Gordon continued gravely, his eyes fixed on the slowly boiling kettle although they did not see it. He just concentrated on getting through the speech he'd prepared, making sure everything came out the way he'd intended. He couldn't even be sure if Batman was still there listening, but he had a pretty strong feeling that he was. "All I know is that at the moment you're a great help to us and that's being compromised by your fugitive status.

"Which is why in a couple of days time I'll be releasing a statement clearing you of any involvement in the murder of Harvey Dent. You were mistakenly identified as having been seen fleeing the murder site, but as we both know, you've attracted a fair number of copycats that like to affect your style of dress. It was dark, the situation was stressful, it's understandable that mistakes were made. You're cleared of suspicion.

"That isn't to say I officially approve of your actions. But for practical reasons, you're back in on the loop."

"You just don't want to see my face whilst I'm there?" Batman queried, an edge to his voice that might just have been Gordon's nerves.

Before the Commissioner could answer, the kettle started to boil with an ear-splitting screech. Having forgotten all about the thing, he jumped and scrabbled for the switch to turn it off. Over the hissing whine of the appliance cooling off he replied "I think it would be best if you kept a low profile for the moment. Public opinion is still strongly turned against you and after… Well, I'm sure you understand. You just have to win their trust back. Things got out of hand after Harvey, but we're going to put them right again. It's going to be a long, difficult process, but we'll manage."

His piece said, Gordon wanted only to forget about it now. He especially didn't want an argument about it. Listening to the silence of his unseen companion provided shaky reassurance that no such thing was forthcoming, so he poured boiling water into his mug, gave it a stir and then carried it over to his desk. He sat down, pleased to be behind a desk he thought he'd never see again, and glanced over at the other man.

Batman still stood in the shadows, but now a bar of light from a street lamp outside lanced through the office window's blinds, distorting his cowled face into strange shapes. He had his head turned slightly away from Gordon in the attitude of a man either deep in thought or trying to hide something. As Gordon watched, the Bat absently lifted a hand, his arm strobing through the splashes of light, touching it momentarily to his cheek. Then he seemed to rouse himself and spoke, although he kept his head turned away.

"How's Janice?"

"She's calmed down; although that might be due to the tranquilisers we gave her." Gordon took a sip of his coffee, scalding his tongue, and contemplated telling Batman how the DA had cried for hours about how her father had devoted all of his time to the study of vigilantes, how she'd always felt second best in his affections compared to his fascination for the Dark Knight, how she should have been a son. Despite his dislike for the woman, it had been heart-wrenching to watch her let go of her dignity like that and he wished he hadn't had to have seen it.

She'd confessed to flying Freeze into the country, renting accommodation for him, telling him where he could find Doctor Strange when he'd asked and helping him plan out his schemes for holding Gotham to ransom. But she said she'd only done it to _help_ Gotham. He remembered the look of zealous devotion to cause on her face when she had said that, the sort of look the Crusaders might have worn upon going into battle or the witch-burners of Salem, and once again he had to suppress a shudder.

She'd been planning to use Freeze not only to trap the Batman, but to also show him up as inadequate, thus getting the vigilante out of the way and freeing Gotham from his stranglehold. Obviously, the plan had backfired in her face. Gordon was glad about that. The woman's scheme had been a destructive, dangerous one. At least now her madness had been revealed and she could no longer pose a threat to the city in the powerful position of District Attorney.

He decided not to tell Batman. It would be no good for either of them and if the Dark Knight really wanted to know, Gordon had no doubt that he would find it out on his own.

"And Freeze?"

"He's accepted his punishment. He'll probably end up in Arkham to get help for his 'bereavement issues', but at least he'll be out of the way there. Speaking of which, that Arkham doctor he abducted – Hugo Strange – he died in the explosion."

"I couldn't save him…"

Gordon didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. He merely sipped at coffee that had already begun to go cold.

From somewhere outside on the street, a scream suddenly rent the air. The Commissioner was on his feet and at the window so fast that he almost spilled his drink all over himself. He could see nothing, but knowing Gotham, the scream could mean anything.

"Sounds like you've got a job to do," he said, but he was talking to an empty room.


	20. Epilogue

Hugo Strange's body was never found. The funeral was held for a memory and prayers were spoken over an empty coffin.

As befitting the sombre occasion, Gotham opened up her skies and rained, turning the grass underfoot to mud and rolling rain drops down the faces of stone angels like tears. Gotham Cemetery on that grey, dreary morning was filled with the sound of water pattering on the many monuments to the city's dead. The gentle sounds were easily drowned out by the droningly loud voice of a priest reading the final rites, his black-garbed form hidden under a huge umbrella to prevent the pages of his prayer book from getting wet. His voice boomed out from beneath it, rolling out across the cemetery like thunder.

He needn't have spoken so loudly, for the group of mourners was a small one. Standing nearest to the priest, with his head bowed in respect and hands clasped in front of him, was Bruce Wayne. As Arkham Asylum's main funder he was here out of duty; as the Batman he was here in the hopes of laying a few personal demons to rest alongside the coffin.

Beside the young millionaire was Police Commissioner James Gordon, whose presence was also grounded in duty. The doctor's death had been brought about by the criminal Mister Freeze, and Gordon felt that some official mark of respect was needed from the police force. It was the least he could do. In a way, he felt partly responsible, thinking that if he'd only somehow seen through Janice in the first place or done something sooner, then a man might still be alive.

Standing opposite the two prominent public figures but separated from them by the open grave, was an unknown blonde woman crying silently into a delicate handkerchief. She hadn't said a word throughout the service, silenced by grief, and no one had attempted to draw her out of it.

Completing the grave ensemble was a man, a late-arrival who stood a little way back from the others. He was bundled up against the weather in a heavy black greatcoat, a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face and a formal hat pulled down low over his eyes. One of his arms was held against his body in a plaster cast and sling, the undamaged hand in his pocket, suggesting an attitude of casualness, but out of the quartet, he seemed the most intent upon the priest's words. His head was turned towards the man of God, and the forward slope of his shoulders gave off the impression that he was hanging on every spoken word.

"…Dust to dust…" The priest droned on like righteous thunder, sounding somehow soothing, a part of nature.

The avid attention of the stranger putting him to shame, Bruce stared straight ahead at nothing, lost in his own brooding thoughts. He let each varying emotion about Strange's death wash over him like the rain, not analysing it as he usually did with his emotions, instead just letting them happen. Perhaps he would never know how he truly felt about the doctor's death. But despite the constant wave of conflicting emotions, beneath them all, he felt as empty as the man's coffin. A part of him had died along with Hugo Strange and he would never get it back. Nothing was ever going to be the same.

"…The earth and the sea shall give up their dead…"

Across the yawning expanse of the grave, Bruce found that he had been staring at the stranger's feet. They were ordinary enough feet, caked in cloying mud just as Bruce's were, but something about them arrested his attention and for a moment took his mind off of empty graves and last rites. It wasn't the obviously battered quality of the shoes beneath the mud – footwear was subject to a lot of tear and wear – nor was it the fact that they seemed subtly out of proportion with the rest of the man, as if they were a size too big for him. In fact, Bruce realised, it wasn't the boots that were strange at all, it was the trousers that the man was wearing.

His heart stopping momentarily in his throat, Bruce glanced quickly to the sad, serious face of the Commissioner beside him, using it to ground himself back in reality. He reasoned that he couldn't have just seen what he thought he had. With all the psychological trauma he had recently been through and considering how it was always on his mind, keeping him from sleep, it was perfectly understandable that he should see things. Especially with the rain distorting everything. He just had to take a deep breath, ignore the nagging unacceptable feeling that he was suffering from wishful thinking, look again and it would be gone.

He looked again. The man was still wearing purple trousers, a disrespectfully jaunty colour amongst the uniform black.

The emptiness inside Bruce seemed to swallow him whole and for a fleeting moment he thought he heard laughter in his head, distant and weak, but laughter all the same. Slowly, he raised his eyes and looked straight into the muddy, sickly feverish gaze of the stranger who was well known to him. The eyes, shadowed by the brim of the hat above them, but ablaze with a light of their own, burned into him with intimate hatred and twisted amusement.

He felt nothing but disgust for those eyes. Perfect understanding seemed to pass between the two men and for one final time they were one.

"…He is able to subdue all things unto himself…"

Then the stranger dropped his eyes, disinterested and indifferent and it was as if the moment had never happened. He was just another unnamed mourner, wet and saddened, waiting for the formalities of death to be over so that he could get out of the rain. He most certainly wasn't the Joker.

The priest closed his prayer book with a snap, intoning "The Lord be with you."

Faithfully, the mourners replied "And with thy spirit." Bruce recovered his senses just in time to join in with the final "Amen" and then it was all over. The stifling oppression seemed to lift a little, although the disorientating grief remained. But a duty had been done and the completion of such is always greeted with some relief, whatever the outcome.

The man with his arm in a cast turned and said a few quiet words to the woman on his side of the grave, who nodded and replied something into the depths of her sodden handkerchief. Having done so, he looked up, seeking out the millionaire opposite. Catching the man's attention, he lifted his unencumbered hand in a farewell gesture that almost could have been mocking, and then turned and began walking away.

Bruce was riled enough by this to be about to chase after the man, when he found himself stopped by Gordon's hand taking his own in a warm handshake.

"It was good seeing you again," Gordon was saying, his face drawn and thoughtful behind the smile.

"You too, Commissioner," Bruce forced himself to smile back and return the other man's handshake, calming the impatience he felt at being waylaid. "Just a shame that it had to be under such unpleasant circumstances."

The Commissioner nodded his agreement and goodbyes were said, along with a few ritual compliments to the dearly departed. By the time he had left Bruce, the man who couldn't possibly have been the Joker was long gone, along with the grieving woman and the priest. He was alone with the dead.

Shaken and sick at heart, Bruce made his way back to his car that he'd left parked just outside the cemetery gates. He avoided the route that would take him past the final resting places of Thomas and Martha Wayne, not wanting to sully them with his own dark feelings. He saw no sign of the other mourners on his way, even though he kept an especial eye out for the man in the purple trousers.

Even if he had seen the man again, he wasn't sure what he would have done. In a way he was glad Gordon had prevented him from going after the stranger. He didn't want to know the truth and he certainly never wanted to see the Joker again. But if that was so, then why did he feel so empty? Like a man who all his life has been fighting a debilitating illness who wakes up one morning to find himself perfectly healthy and doesn't know what purpose his life has anymore, now that the fight has been won. He finds himself suddenly alone.

That night after Strange's death, he had searched everywhere for the murderous clown, but had been unable to find him. Since then, Bruce had seemed to be living in a fugue state, unsure of his direction in life and of whether he even _wanted_ to find the missing criminal, unable to maintain a firm grip on what was his waking life and the dreams that haunted what little sleep he could get.

Getting into the car, Bruce hauled off his soaking wet coat and threw it onto the back seat. Then, sitting back, he angled the mirror down so that he could see his face and began gently to remove the flesh-coloured bandaging that covered one cheek. The gauze had been disguised to blend in perfectly with his skin, covering up a wound that could have easily given away his secret identity to Gordon. The bandage came away bloodied, sticking to his weeping skin and stinging as it was pulled away, but the cut wasn't as bad as it looked. It was actually healing remarkably well, considering how deep the knife had gone into his flesh, although there was no doubt that it would leave an ugly scar.

Bruce turned his head and silently studied the lasting reminder of his final fight with Joker in the mirror. A red gash ran up from the corner of his lips in the sick parody of a smile that wept blood, mocking everything he was and everything he stood for. He turned his face the other way and was met with smooth, unmarred skin. Like a tongue returning to probe an aching tooth, he displayed his frightening half-smile to the mirror once again.

Joker had always said they were alike, the clown and the bat, just two freaks standing on the edge of society together; too dangerous, too different to be allowed in. He'd never wanted to believe it, he hadn't believed it, but here was the proof grinning at him from the mirror. He felt sickened. The clown had marked him, made Bruce more like him, but he hadn't won. He couldn't be allowed to win. Bruce's was only half a smile, which meant there was still hope.

The night is darkest just before the dawn and Bruce thought that maybe, _just maybe_, he could see the first rays of the sun creeping over the edge of the horizon. But bats are nocturnal creatures and have always felt more at home in the dark.

Bruce Wayne, the Batman, turned the key in the ignition and the radio came on of its own accord, playing an old David Bowie song. Then, for a long time, he just sat there with his head resting on his hands on top of the steering wheel and listening to the rain outside.

_Though nothing  
Will keep us together  
We could steal time  
Just for one day  
We can be Heroes  
For ever and ever  
What d'you say_

* * *

A/N: Well, that's the last of it. Although it seems I've become somewhat addicted to this writing lark, and since there are a few loose threads left hanging in this story I thought I might knit them all together into a sequel. So watch this space, bat-fans, I might be writing something to put in it. XD Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed this.

And the lyrics at the end are from David Bowie's song 'We Could Be Heroes'.


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